Deleted Role

It can be nearly impossible to tell exactly what will happen between script and screen. Between casting, rewrites, various production quibbles and the like, the final product could easily be completely different than what the people involved thought they were working on. Editing can have a particularly dramatic impact, with the director and editor being able to shape the footage at their own whim. Occastionally, whole characters fall victim to cutting. This trope is what happens when a Deleted Scene also removes an entire actor from the product.

See also Demoted to Extra, when a character's screentime is simply cut to the point of insignificance.

Film

 * Austin Powers had a Running Gag cut from the first film, which had several scenes showing the family and friends of Faceless Mooks upon learning of their deaths. Including Rob Lowe in this cameo: . Rob was given an on-screen role in the sequel.
 * The film Be Cool had a scene where Linda was interviewed by Patti LaBelle for her radio show. However, the music legend's scene had to be cut for time.
 * In The Big Chill, the friend who committed suicide, putting the entire plot in motion, was originally meant to be played in flashback by Kevin Costner. Writer/Director Lawrence Kasdan eventually decided his character didn't need to be seen, and all of Costner's scenes were edited out.
 * La Toya Jackson had a scene in the movie Bruno in which the titular character invites her to eat sushi off an obese naked man and practically begs her to call her brother Michael to join them. Unfortunately, hours before the movie's red carpet premiere in Los Angeles, Michael died, and the scene was immediately cut.
 * Woody Allen cut all of Vanessa Redgrave's scenes from his film Celebrity.
 * He also cut all of the scenes involving Kim Rossi Stuart, Liv Tyler, and Tracey Ullman from Everyone Says I Love You.
 * Ellen Pompeo had a scene in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind where she played an ex-girlfriend of Joel that was deleted from the final cut.
 * Wes Craven's werewolf movie Cursed (2005 film) was very much a Troubled Production, and as a result of Executive Meddling, re-writes, and re-casting, many actors filmed scenes that were never shown. Among those who fell victim to the Cursed (2005 film) curse were Skeet Ulrich (whose character was originally a central figure), Illeana Douglas, Heather Langenkamp, Scott Foley, Omar Epps, Robert Forster, Corey Feldman, and James Brolin.
 * Andy Garcia's role as Michelle Pfeiffer's love interest in Dangerous Minds was left on the cutting room floor, thereby preventing a Romantic Plot Tumor.
 * Daredevil originally had a subplot involving the titular hero having to prove the innocence of a client played by Coolio, which was removed due to Executive Meddling. It was later restored for the Directors Cut.
 * Harrison Ford originally had a scene in ET the Extraterrestrial where he played the school principal, but Steven Spielberg decided to cut it, not wanting to be accused of Stunt Casting (even though Ford's face was never shown).
 * James Gandolfini shot scenes as a man who meets Sandra Bullock at grief counselling in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, but they were cut after negative reactions at test screenings.
 * Lara Flynn Boyle's first film part was a small role in Ferris Buellers Day Off, but none of her scenes made it into the final movie.
 * Mick Jagger was supposed to appear in Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo, but various troubles with the production (along with Jagger's commitment to the Rolling Stones) led to his character being removed.
 * Farrah Fawcett's character was cut entirely out of the Gene Wilder movie Funny About Love. Roger Ebert described this as "One of the biggest breaks in Farrah Fawcett's career."
 * The original five-hour cut of Gods and Generals (now available on Blu-Ray) featured a subplot following the life and career of John Wilkes Booth. It was cut due to Executive Meddling.
 * In the film of ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Rik Mayall filmed scenes as Peeves the Poltergeist. They were cut from the film and for some reason or another have never been released. Which is a great shame.
 * Harold Ramis originally had a scene as John Cusack's father in High Fidelity, but it was cut.
 * Ice Age originally had a character named Sylvia, voiced by Kristen Johnston (Sally on 3rd Rock from the Sun), a Clingy Jealous Girl sloth whom Sid was trying to get rid of. She was cut for various reasons, mainly because she made Sid come off as a Jerkass.
 * Brandon Routh was cast as a vampire in Gregor Jordan's film adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ short-story collection The Informers, but all of his scenes were removed before the film's release.
 * Maggie Cheung was cast as the former owner of Shoshanna's movie theatre in Inglourious Basterds, but all of her scenes were cut from the final release.
 * Cloris Leachman was in a flashback scene as The Bear Jew's grandmother that got cut. Her scene would have explained how The Bear Jew got his bat.
 * Ghostface Killah of The Wu Tang Clan was supposed to have a cameo in Iron Man, but his sequence was cut from the final film.
 * Sam Rockwell had a Deleted Scene in Jarhead where he played Jake Gyllenhall's uncle.
 * L.A. Story: Both John Lithgow and Scott Bakula filmed scenes that were later cut during the editing process. Lithgow's character Harry Zell is mentioned by other characters in a couple of scenes.
 * In Magnolia, Orlando Jones's role, as "The Worm"—the father of the rapping boy and also the murderer of the man in the closet—was left on the cutting room floor. This makes Dead Guy In Closet's Murder an Unreveal and makes the boy's presence in the film more or less random. In the final cut Jones appears only as the mysterious hooded pedestrian that Officer Jim chases before losing his gun.
 * Averted in The Man Who Would Be King. John Huston considered cutting out the Rudyard Kipling character (played by Christopher Plummer) and probably would have, had star Sean Connery not decided to Wag the Director.
 * Jennifer Ehle was cast as George Clooney's love interest in Michael Clayton, but all of her scenes were cut(save for a brief, out-of-focus appearance in the background of one shot). Clooney personally apologized to her for the exclusion.
 * George Harrison originally had a larger role in Monty Python's Life of Brian, but it got cut to him just being introduced as the manager of the Mount and saying "Hello."
 * Also, a scene setting up Otto and the Judean People's Front was deleted, so their Big Damn Heroes (Subverted) moment at the end comes out of nowhere.
 * Estella Warren planned to make a big comeback with a supporting role in the spy comedy Mr. and Mrs. Smith, but her part (along with Adam Brody - they played a husband and wife who get wrapped up in the film's plot) was deleted from the final print.
 * Keith David & Angela Bassett were cast as the bosses of the title characters, but only their voices remained in the final movie.
 * Terence Stamp and Jacqueline Bisset also appeared in a subplot as terrorists that got cut.
 * The Muppets originally had cameos by Steve Carell, Billy Crystal, Wanda Sykes and Danny Trejo. Sykes and Trejo's scenes appeared on one of the trailers.
 * Famous bodybuilding siblings David and Peter Paul had a scene in Natural Born Killers where they were interviewed by the Robert Downey, Jr. character because despite having their legs hacked off by the main characters, they can't help but be impressed by their charisma. Director Oliver Stone, despite praising their scene as the best-written one in the movie (whose screenplay was written by Quentin Tarantino), couldn't fit it into the final cut.
 * Ashley Judd also had a part that was cut, where she had a 9-minute scene as a courtroom witness. Denis Leary appeared in a cameo as a conspiracy theory-obsessed prisoner that was cut.
 * Sam Waterston played CIA director Richard Helms in Oliver Stone's Nixon, but after public outcry from Helms's children over how his character was portrayed, his scene was cut from the film. It was later reinstated for the home video Directors Cut.
 * Mel Blanc originally recorded dialogue for Gideon the cat in Pinocchio. He was cut out not because the character was taken out but because they decided to keep him silent. A single hiccup is all that remains of Blanc's performance in the film.
 * The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes was originally envisioned as a three-hour movie composed of four semiconnected stories. However, the studio pressured Billy Wilder into removing the first and third segemnts, completely cutting Inspector Lestrade (played by George Benson) and other characters played by the likes of Noel Johnson, Nicole Shelby, and David Kossoff from the movie.
 * Bruce Campbell had a cameo in The Quick and the Dead that was cut out in the final edit. His name still appears in the final credits.
 * In Rat Race, Owen caught a ride on a moving house only to discover it was not quite empty when he walked in on Kimberly Page in her underwear, causing her to scream. This leads to Diamond Dallas Page showing up and beating up the former referee. The scene was cut from the final film for time purposes.
 * Chris Cooper originally had a role in The Ring where he played a serial killer who tried to convince Naomi Watts to petition for his early release. Had his scene remained in the movie, she would have
 * But for a single shot in the montage that closes the movie, this is Jeaneane Garofalo's fate in Southland Tales. Brian O'Halloran (Dante Hicks from Clerks) was also rumored to have been cut.
 * Spice World originally had cameos from Jason Isaacs and Gary Glitter that were eventually cut. The latter case is very well justified, as the singer was arrested for possession of child pornography shortly before the film's release.
 * Star Trek: Nemesis was supposed to have a scene with Wil Wheaton as Wesley at Troi and Riker's wedding, but it was cut, leaving him with only a brief, dialogue-free appearance in the film.
 * James Van Der Beek was cut out of Todd Solondz's Storytelling. It's not known exactly who he was playing, but rumors say that he played a gay football player whose part included an explicit sex scene.
 * Surf's Up originally had an interview scene with Big Z's former girlfriends, voiced by Jane Krakowski and Mindy Sterling. The girlfriends still appear in the background, but nearly all of their dialogue scenes were cut.
 * Tim Burton decided to drop the Crowd Songs partway through filming Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, feeling they were uncinematic. This resulted in performers Christopher Lee and Anthony Stewart Head being cut from the movie (even though the latter has a single line cameo following "The Contest").
 * Michael Biehn was supposed to reprise his role as Kyle Reese in Terminator 2: Judgement Day, but his scene was cut. It was, however, reinstated for the Directors Cut.
 * Terrence Malick is notorious for this, due to the fact that he shapes his films as he is making them. The most famous case was his 1998 war epic The Thin Red Line, where of the All-Star Cast, Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Sheen, Gary Oldman, Bill Pullman, Lukas Haas, Viggo Mortensen, and Mickey Rourke were cut out completely, and others such as George Clooney and Adrien Brody (who was originally supposed to be the lead) had their screen time drastically reduced to one or two scenes each.
 * Sean Penn famously complained that his role in The Tree of Life had been so drastically reduced that he wondered why Malick had kept him in at all
 * Weird Al's Non-Actor Vehicle UHF, had at least two characters who were removed via editing in the final product.
 * The X Men films have multiple examples of this:
 * X2: X-Men United was meant to feature brief cameos from Beast and Gambit during the brainwashed Professor X's telepathic attack on the mutants, which would have caused their powers to flare involuntarily, but the sequence was cut. The characters would later appear in X-Men: The Last Stand and X Men Origins: Wolverine, respectively.
 * A cameo was planned for the fan-favorite character Jubliee, and in all three of the main X-Men films, the character was cut.
 * The actor who played Colossus (Daniel Cudmore) was intended to have a much larger presence in The Last Stand (including a fight scene with both Juggernaut and Magneto, who throws Colossus away when he armors up). Almost the entirety of his role is deleted, and he appears in a non-speaking background role for the entirety of the film.
 * In Oliver Stone's George W. Bush biopic W., Michael Shannon had a scene as the preacher who converted Dubya to evangelical Christianity. For some reason or another, it was cut out of the final product.
 * Rob Corddry and Ioan Gruffudd also had their roles cut to almost nothing (Corddry has a one-line role at the end, Gruffudd has one scene in the middle).
 * In the 1939 film version of The Women, Margaret Dumont was cast as Mrs. Wagstaff, but got edited out entirely.
 * Before Twilight and Harry Potter, Robert Pattinson was cast as Becky Sharp's son in Vanity Fair in which he reconciles with his mother. Perhaps because this was wildly Out of Character for Becky, it was cut.
 * Disney's animated version of Alice in Wonderland leaves out the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon, even though both of them appear in an old commercial featuring characters from that film.
 * Jared Leto had a cameo as an actor in Phone Booth that was cut as it didn't fit the film's tone. However, the cable version adds this scene back in to pad the film's run time.
 * Jonathan Brandis had a role as Private Lewis P. Wakely in the 2002 film Hart's War. His frustration over its deletion, which he hoped would be his comeback role, was thought to have been a contributing factor behind his suicide in 2003.

Live Action TV

 * The Highlander series had a variant of this-Christopher Lambert did appear in the pilot, but when footage shot for the pilot was used in a flashback in a later ep, Lambert was edited out because they couldn't afford to pay for a second appearance.
 * The pilot for Chuck featured Natalie Martinez as the protagonist's other love interest and neighbor Kayla Hart, who was going to be a main character but was instead cut from the pilot (and series) entirely before it aired.
 * On The X-Files, Scully was originally supposed to have a boyfriend at the start of the series, named Ethan. He was eventually cut, but the deleted scenes with him can be seen on Youtube. Ethan also tends to crop up in fanfiction.

Theatre

 * The original production of the musical Show Boat cast a well-known actress as Hetty Chilson, though Edna Ferber's character had already been practically Demoted to Extra before being cut out of the show entirely. The actress, Dagmar Oakland, remained in the cast as Dolly, a small part in a Filler scene.

Video Games

 * In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty a character named Chinaman was originally meant as one of the Dead Cell, but before release he was cut for reasons unknown and Vamp had his initial role merged with Chinaman's, which explains why he has water-related abilities, which were originally meant as Chinaman's, besides his knife mastery and immortality.
 * All of the Duke Nukem Forever trailers up till Gearbox took over featured The Prospector. He was dropped by Gearbox as a character.

Western Animation

 * The Joker was meant to cameo in the Justice League episode "This Little Piggy", where after Diana, Batman would be walking down the street with her and would pass the Joker preparing to commit a crime with his gang. The Joker, in the middle of preparing a heist and laying out his convoluted plan to deal with Batman, would see Batman and would stare at it in Dull Surprise, then throw his hands in the air and abandon the entire scheme. For various reasons, the scene was dropped.
 * The My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic episode "Luna Eclipsed" originally had a scene where Twilight Sparkle took Princess Luna to see Rarity to help improve her image with a new dress. As a result of the scene being cut, Rarity had an absent episode.
 * In A Wish for Wings That Work, the Bloom County TV special, Sterling Holloway was originally going to be the voice of Opus, and his lines were even recorded for it, but for unknown reasons, it was changed at the last second to Michael Bell.