Image: Starz
Orlando Jones gave one of the breakout performances in
American Gods as Mr. Nancy, an African trickster god who sharply reflected and reacted to America’s history of slavery and racism. In the second season, his role on the show increased, as Jones took on production and writing tasks alongside his stunning performance. But now, according to Jones himself, he’s been fired from the show ahead of its third season.
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In a blistering video announcement on Twitter, Jones stated this morning that he was fired from the show on September 10, 2018 (later corrected to 2019). In his forty-five second statement, he calls out the film’s new showrunner, Charles Eglee, for firing him for reasons more closely related to racial and political anxieties than anything about his performance.
Ian McShane returns as mullet-sporting Norse deity Odin
“Bonkers” doesn’t begin to do justice to seasons one and two of American Gods. Amazon Prime Video’s megabucks adaptation of the cult Neil Gaiman novel gave us Ian McShane as mullet-sporting Norse deity Odin, Gillian Anderson as a gender-flipped supernatural David Bowie and former Hollyoaks actor Ricky Whittle playing a brooding All American badboy named “Shadow Moon”. It was more barking than the afterparty at Crufts.
It’s still quite out there as it returns for an addictively outrageous third series. This is made clear from the outset with a sequence in which McShane’s “Mr Wednesday” – aka Wotan, aka Odin – crowd surfs at a heavy metal concert (headlined by Marilyn Manson). He does so while dressed like Thor from the Marvel comics. It’s as if someone at last decided to make a Lovejoy film only to put the guys from Game of Thrones in charge.
American Gods Season 3 Cast: Who Are the New Gods and Who s Leaving?
On 1/10/21 at 10:00 AM EST
American Gods Season 3 is coming to Starz and Amazon Prime Video this January with a number of new faces joining the cast. Ashley Reyes will be joining the main cast of the Neil Gaiman series, while actors like Marilyn Manson, Blythe Danner and Iwan Rheon will be making appearances in the new episodes alongside regulars like Ricky Whittle, Emily Browning and Ian McShane.
Orlando Jones, meanwhile, will be leaving the show as Mr. Nancy. In a December 2019 video, the actor released a Twitter video in which he claims to have been fired by new showrunner Charles Eglee, who Jones claims thought that Nancy sent the wrong message to black America.
Look, we know you’re only reading this because you want to know if the new season of
American Gods is any good or not, but it seems impossible to start telling you anything about a show that largely concerns the Norse God Odin trying to start a war in America without first acknowledging that a few days ago we all watched as a deluded man wearing Viking horns and covered in Odin tattoos stood inside the US Capitol screaming that a war is coming.
American Gods takes place in a world where mere belief is enough to think terrifying power into existence, which certainly makes it relatable. The arrival of the show’s third season couldn’t feel more timely, dealing as it does with an aging, once-powerful megalomaniac whose lust for control sets him on the path to violence. Ian McShane’s Mr Wednesday, Odin by another name, is such a charming man that it’s easy to lose sight of quite how hell bent on all out war he is. In the new season’s opening episode, he offers our hero Shad
Neil Gaiman: Siempre he vivido en un mundo en el que ser cancelado en tu trabajo es una posibilidad | Televisión elpais.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from elpais.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.