Veteran actor Frank Langella has been axed from the lead role in Netflix’s limited series “The Fall Of The House Of Usher” after being accused of sexual harassment on set.
Langella, 84, has been fired and the role of Roderick Usher will be recast, the Daily News confirmed Thursday.
A spokesperson for Langella did not immediately return a request for comment from The News and Netflix declined to comment.
On Tuesday, TMZ reported that Netflix had launched an investigation after Langella touched a female co-star’s leg during a rehearsal and asked if she liked it. He also allegedly made an “inappropriate joke that was sexual in nature.”
The eight-episode limited series, based on the short stories of Edgar Allen Poe and created by Mike Flanagan, features a star-studded cast including Carla Gugino, Mary McDonnell, Carl Lumbly and Mark Hamill. In December, Flanagan described it as a “modern remix of some of the most iconic works of Edgar Allan Poe” and an “epic tale of greed, horror, and tragedy.” Most details about the project have been kept under wraps.
Flanagan has become Netflix’s go-to horror master with his anthology series “The Haunting,” which includes “The Haunting of Hill House” and “The Haunting of Bly Manor,” last year’s “Midnight Mass” and the upcoming “Midnight Club.”
Production will continue on scenes that do not involve the Usher patriarch, according to Deadline, and continue in full once the role is recast. Scenes already filmed with Langella will also be reshot.
Langella, a Bayonne, New Jersey, native, has won four Tony awards in his decades-long career and was nominated in 2008 for best actor for playing former president Richard Nixon in “Frost/Nixon.”
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