Stephen Baldwin claimed he was fired from the 1998 film “The Object of My Affection” for being “funnier” than co-star Jennifer Aniston.
During Sunday’s episode of his podcast “One Bad Movie,” Baldwin revealed he was initially cast as Vince McBride, the boyfriend of Aniston’s Nina Borowski, in the rom-com directed by Nicholas Hytner.
“I get there and I’m me,” he said. “Jennifer’s cute and whatever. I got a girl. I’m good.”
The 60-year-old actor said on the second day of shooting, a producer came to his trailer and told him there was “a problem.”
“He goes, “You can’t be funnier than Jennifer,’” Baldwin recalled. “I go, ‘Is this a joke? This is a comedy movie! Am I about to get punked? What do you even mean by that?’”
Baldwin stressed he wasn’t sharing the story to “shred anybody,” but rather to prove that “Hollywood’s Hollywood.”
The “Usual Suspects” compared the producer’s criticism to being “mauled in the face by a f—ing wolverine” and “numbing himself.”
He said when he returned to the set after being “castrated comedically,” he toned down his comedic delivery.
“You hired me to play a role, and now you’re telling me not to play that role,” he recalled thinking to himself.
Baldwin said he was cut from the film after that day.
“They let me go. They told me I could go home,” he shared. “And that was all cool. But that’s just awkward.”
The role as Vince ultimately went to “Mad About You” star John Pankow.
“The Object of My Affection” is about Nina (Aniston), a New York social worker who gets pregnant by her boyfriend (Pankow) but decides she’d rather raise her child with her gay roommate George (Paul Rudd).
Aniston and Rudd, 57, worked together again in “Friends,” which aired from 1994 to 2004, and in the 2012 comedy “Wanderlust.”
During a March 1998 interview with Bobbie Wygant, Aniston said she initially felt “challenged and intimidated” by her role in “The Object of My Affection.”
“It’s a very complex situation and very necessary to tell it truthfully and give it everything it deserved,” she said of the movie’s plot.
Aniston then described working on the film as “the most incredible experience I’ve had to date as an actress.”
