Adi Shankar is replacing “Glee” star Mark Salling in his film “Gods and Secrets” following the actor’s indictment on charges of child pornography.
“He has been cut from the mini-series, I will personally be paying for the reshoots, and I hope that Mark finds inner peace,” the director said in a statement.
Previously, the director reserved judgment when Salling was arrested in December.
Salling, known for playing Noah “Puck” Puckerman on the popular Fox musical series “Glee,” was arrested in December by the LAPD Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
A search warrant issued for the actor’s residence reportedly uncovered as many as 1,000 images depicting minors simulating sexual acts. The photos were allegedly spread across a laptop and flash drive.
“Gods and Secrets” explores the darker ramifications of a world filled with superheroes — for the people they protect and the famous heroes themselves. Shawn Deloache (“New Adventures of Peter and Wendy”) wrote the script. Jenni Powell and Discourse Productions are producers.
The project also stars Kellan Lutz, “Transparent” actress Alexandra Billings and Jane Seymour.
Read Shankar’s full statement below:
The innocence of our planet’s children is something that must be protected at all costs. As entertainers, our role is to be the “conscience of humanity,” striving to make the world better for future generations. Sadly, we live in a country where statistically at least 1 in 5 women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime, 80,000 children are reportedly sexually abused every year, and at least 1 in 6 boys and 1 in 4 girls are sexually abused before the age of 18. According to available data, every two minutes, an American is sexually assaulted. Even more troubling, exponentially more cases go unreported as in most situations, authority figures are ill equipped to help.
The aforementioned statistics are nauseating, reminiscent of a third world country, and until very recently, kept out of the limelight. Child abuse is a cultural cancer whose tentacles penetrate far deeper than a single celebrity caught with illicit images on his computer, just as date rape is a is a far more prominent issue than the repeated transgressions of one mediocre entertainer from the 1970’s. Child abuse is a democratic disease existing across socioeconomic lines affecting every walk of life. It affects all of us, and more importantly, its existence needs to cece to exist. Period.
Adi Shankar‘s Gods and Secrets will be moving forward without Mark Salling. He has been cut from the mini-series, I will personally be paying for the reshoots, and I hope that Mark finds inner peace. Furthermore, a percentage of profits from the project will go to a charity for abused children. Hopefully some good will come of all of this and I pray that when the dust has settled, the hyper-connectivity of the information age that has brought to light the transgressions of several public figures, will also force us to look within our society to identify and eliminate the root cause of the rape culture we exist in.