When allegations of sexual harassment against Kevin Spacey came to light, Ridley Scott made a shocking decision to cut the actor out of his upcoming movie, “All the Money in the World,” and replace him with Christopher Plummer.
Scott and the cast, which includes Plummer, Michelle Williams and Mark Wahlberg, spoke with Entertainment Tonight about the experience.
“I knew as soon as they hit Kevin it was going to blow wide open and I contacted my partners and said, ‘We should recast this right now. We shoot right now, we’ll be out the same day,’” Scott said. “Within 26 hours, I knew what I was going to do.”
Plummer joined the project, and Williams said reshooting the scenes with Plummer as J. Paul Getty didn’t give a lot of “freedom” because the rest of the film had already been completed.
“There wasn’t a tremendous amount of freedom in order to change things because things had to be slotted in pretty carefully,” the actress said. “This movie [was turned] around in three days. It wasn’t like you could sort of radically adjust and decide to jump on a table, or you now wear a different suit or something.”
Wahlberg and Plummer didn’t meet until they were scheduled to shoot a scene together, the duo revealed, meaning that Wahlberg only met Plummer in the full Getty get-up.
“I walked on the set and I met Chris that day,” Wahlberg said. “He was already in wardrobe and makeup in front of the camera. We said hello literally in front of the camera as Ridley was saying rolling and we started shooting.”
In November, a month before the film was supposed to hit theaters, Scott decided to cut Spacey from the film on the heels of accusations of sexual misconduct made against him and chose Plummer to fill in. Reshoots commenced immediately and Scott was sure to make the planned Dec. 22 limited opening.
“All The Money In The World” follows Getty as his grandson, John Paul Getty III (Charlie Plummer) is kidnapped and held for ransom. Getty refuses to pay the ransom despite the pleas of his daughter-in-law, Gail (Williams), who then turns to Getty’s adviser (Mark Wahlberg) as they race against time to get Getty III back while he is brutalized by his captors.