It hasn’t been the best of weeks for American Gods, with actor Orlando Jones going public over his anger at being fired from his role of Mr. Nancy on the show. Jones has already gone on record on social media about some of the reasons behind his departure, with his firing having been met by a backlash from fans of the show. And now, the actor has sat down with Variety to discuss in more detail the problems he experienced with American Gods‘ producers, and gave some insight into why he feels personally hurt by his treatment.
Commenting on the fallout from the firing, Jones had this to say:
“Now you are a pariah, for what? That’s for me what’s most perplexing, most hurtful about it. It’s like, what did I do to you people? It’s not my first time having a bad thing happen. But this is purely different, because it does seem extremely personal and extremely pointed.”
The seemingly personal nature of Jones’ firing is what’s upset a lot of people, with the actor previously indicating that there were disagreements behind-the-scenes with season 3 showrunner Charles H. Eglee over the racial representation on the series. Jones goes on to describe how he felt that the American Gods producers could have handled the situation more sensitively, remarking as so:
“I wish these people acted more responsibly. I wish they acted more respectfully. And it would have been nice to get a proper ‘thank you’ and would have been nice to be paid. You know, my children aren’t in cages. I’m not in Aleppo. I still see myself as very privileged and, and I’m super grateful. But nobody else needs to go through this. Not for doing your work, for doing your job, to get screwed over like this.”
It certainly seems like there’s more to this story than we’ve heard so far, although all would probably agree that Jones deserved fairer treatment. Based on what production company Fremantle have put out so far, the decision to let Jones go was more down to the reduced importance of Mr. Nancy in the ongoing adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s novel, than to any disagreements with Jones over the direction of the character.
In any case, we expect there to be more information coming out from both camps, with Jones certainly not holding back when it comes to calling out the weak response from Fremantle. It’s worth emphasizing, though, that the actor has taken the time to praise other people on the show, including Neil Gaiman, Bryan Fuller and Michael Green, for casting him as Mr. Nancy.
As ever, we’ll be sure to bring you more news as we have it on how the American Gods team respond to Jones’ latest comments, so be sure to stay tuned.