Over the weekend, Orlando Jones revealed that he had been fired from American Gods, Starz’s frequently-troubled adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s novel. It came as a surprise to fans of the series, and the Mr. Nancy actor himself. “There will be no more Mr. Nancy. Don’t let these motherf*ckers tell you they love Mr. Nancy. They don’t,” Jones said in a video posted to Twitter. “I’m not going to name names, but the new season three showrunner is Connecticut born and Yale educated, so he’s very smart and he thinks that Mr. Nancy’s angry, ‘get sh*t done’ is the wrong message for black America.”
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Jones expanded on his exit and how Starz’s official statement (“Mr. Jones’ option was not picked up because Mr. Nancy, among other characters, is not featured in the portion of the book we are focusing on within season three”) was, as he put it, “ridiculous.” Jones called his firing a “blindside because, technically, I don’t work for Starz, I work for [production company] Fremantle. It was quite strange to be getting a call from Starz to tell me that when all of my previous communications and my manager’s previous communications had been with Fremantle.”
Jones didn’t mention “the new season three showrunner” (and Dark Angel co-creator) Charles Eglee by name in the video, and he never actually met him, but he heard from co-stars that Eglee called Mr. Nancy the “wrong type of anger.” Jones added, “I’ve never experienced sexism, I’m a guy. You’ve never experienced racism, you’re a white guy. How could you possibly write from my perspective or any black person’s perspective? I just don’t get what it means. It just seems crazy to me that somebody would say that.”
Jones goes on to say Eglee “wouldn’t even have a job had we not worked our tails off to make season two ultimately come to fruition so [Fremantle/Starz] could hire you… So, what are you talking about?” he says. “You weren’t even there when we were doing the work and now you’re pretending that you’ve crafted something differently. No, you didn’t.” (Via)
American Gods season three does not have a premiere date yet.
(Via Entertainment Weekly)
