The Fall of the House of Usher: More Details Reportedly Revealed About Frank Langella's Firing
More details are coming to light about Frank Langella's on-set behavior while filming the Netflix series The Fall of the House of Usher, which ultimately led to him getting fired from the series. A new report from Deadline cites reactions from a number of people who were either on or close to the set of The Fall of the House of Usher. While all of these sources remained anonymous, an overwhelming number of them referred to Langella's behavior as "toxic", and revealed that it ranged from inappropriate comments to inappropriate behavior to "crass jokes" allegedly made by the actor.
"There was a general sense of toxicity that followed him around," one person working on the series said. "A lot of the cast and crew were very uncomfortable around Frank from the beginning."
This matches with previous reports that indicated that Langella made inappropriate jokes and had even been accursed of sexual harassment on the set of the series. Shortly after Langella was fired from the series, which was midway through production at the time, Bruce Greenwood was cast in Langella's role of Roderick Usher. Langella subsequently published an op-ed in Deadline, in which he alleged that he had "been cancelled," and claimed that the ordeal was "not fair", "not just", and "not American."
"On March 25 of this year, I was performing a love scene with the actress playing my young wife," Langella wrote. "Both of us were fully clothed. I was sitting on a couch, she was standing in front of me. The director called 'cut.' 'He touched my leg,' said the actress. 'That was not in the blocking.' She then turned and walked off the set, followed by the director and the intimacy coordinator. I attempted to follow but was asked to 'give her some space.' I waited for approximately one hour, and was then told she was not returning to set and we were wrapped."
Based on the works of Edgar Allen Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher follows a man who has been invited to visit his childhood friend Roderick Usher. Usher gradually makes clear that his twin sister Madeline has been placed in the family vault not quite dead. When she reappears in her blood-stained shroud, the visitor rushes to leave as the entire house splits and sinks into a lake.
Other confirmed cast members in the series include Carla Gugino (Gerald's Game), Mark Hamill (Star Wars), Kate Siegel (Haunting of Hill House), Mary McDonnell (Battlestar Galactica) as Madeline Usher, Zach Gilford (The Purge: Anarchy), Paola Nuñez (Bad Boys For Life), Annabeth Gish (Midnight Mass), Malcolm Goodwin (Reacher), Rahul Kohli (iZombie), Samantha Sloyan (Midnight Mass), JayR Tinaco (Another Life, Space Force), Willa Fitzgerald (Reacher), and Robert Longstreet (Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass).
The Fall of the House of Usher is set to be released by Netflix at a later date.