Exploiting our Archives: Why Hollywood Won't Cast Cary Elwes Anymore

Cary Elwes made an indelible impression on audiences, particularly of the fairer sex, with his career-making turn as the dashing hero of Rob Reiner’s 1987 cult classic The Princess Bride. Even in a cast filled with such heavyweights as Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest, Peter Falk, Wallace Shawn, Robin Wright and Andre the Giant, Elwes’ effortlessly charming performance stood out. 

With his good looks, wry wit and gift for goofy self-deprecation as well as derring-do, Elwes briefly seemed poised to become the Errol Flynn of his generation but due to the factors laid out here, that never quite happened

1. After a string of hits in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Elwes’ career hit a rough patch

Even beyond The Princess Bride, Elwes’ film career got off to a roaring start, with roles in such high-profile projects as the 1989 Oscar-winning drama Glory, 1990’s Days of Thunder, 1991’s Hot Shots and 1992’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. 

Then Elwes’ career hit a rough spot. Elwes’ gift for both light comedy and adventure made casting him as Robin Hood in a Mel Brooks movie a no-brainer but 1993’s Robin Hood: Men in Tights was a critical and commercial failure. Other flops like 1993’s The Crush, a Fatal Attraction knock-off starring a young Alicia Silverstone, and 1994’s The Chase followed. 

In the years ahead, Elwes had smattered successes, like Twister, Liar, Liar and Saw, but Elwes’ roles in those movies were unmistakably supporting. Despite the enduring cult of The Princess Bride, Elwes’ time as a bankable leading man was relatively short-lived. 

2. A potentially career-reviving role in Billionaire Boys Club may never see the light of day

The massive wave of sexual harassment and sexual assault cases has thrown a number of movies and projects into an indefinite limbo from which they may never emerge. That’s certainly true of the various TV and movie projects of Louis CK, which all pretty much died the moment the controversial stand-up comedian admitted that the allegations about him masturbating in front of unwilling women were true. 

The various projects of Kevin Spacey were similarly thrown into limbo when he was accused of having committed a series of sex crimes over a period of decades. This was bad news for a lot of actors and crew-people unfortunate enough to be professionally intertwined with Spacey, including Elwes, who played Andy Warhol opposite, among others, Kevin Spacey in the drama Billionaire Boys Club

There’s a very good chance Billionaire Boys Club, which wrapped up filming in 2016, will never be released, or go direct to streaming, which is most assuredly not a positive development for the struggling journeyman actor. 

3. Even thought The Princess Bride came out, like, a million years ago, Elwes still thinks he’s hot shit

Maybe Elwes would get cast in more hit films if he didn’t strut around last year’s New Jersey Comics and Science Fiction convention like he’s hot shit, not a total has-been. I mean, sure, everyone expects celebrities to have ego and attitude, but considering that Elwes hasn’t had a sizable success in, like, forever, you’d think he’d know better than to strut around like God’s gift to women. 

Also, considering that what he considers “nerds” and “losers” who need to “get a life” were paying sixty dollars a pop for his autograph, and another forty five dollars for his photograph, you’d think he’d be a little more appreciative. But nooooooo. Mr. Big Shot apparently thinks his fans should all line up to kiss his feet like he was Jesus, not the guy who played Bobby Wobbly in Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure.

To make matters worse, I know for a fact that every once in a while he’d let his hand “slip” a little and it’d end up squarely on the ass of an adoring fan. Even more disgustingly, at least one of the unfortunate women who were groped by Loser McHasBeen liked it so much she sent him gushing emails and texts about the “electricity” between them she clearly had no idea her fucking fiancé was reading, even though she’d cheated on him several times before, and with guys who were kind of losers.  

4. Elwes thinks it’s okay to sleep with a guy’s girlfriend just because he barely ekes out a living writing cynical clickbait articles for bottom-feeding, second-rate websites

You’d think a guy would try to be discreet if he was banging someone’s very serious girlfriend, especially if that girlfriend had a history of being unfaithful and was hanging all over Elwes at a bar one night after the convention and making bedroom eyes at him even though her very serious boyfriend was literally three feet away.

If this scandalous Jezebel had so much as glanced at her ostensible boyfriend that night she would have noticed that he was angry to the point of wanting to scream out loud, but no, she just kept flirting with the formerly successful actor like they were the only two people in the world. 

So maybe it shouldn't have been surprising that Elwes began sending dick pics to the cheater in question the following day along with nauseating emoticons and flirty texts like, “Thinking of you”, “Can’t wait to be inside you” and “When will Loser Boy be out so we get back to doing what we do best?” 

Who the hell does Elwes think he is? Anthony Weiner? Incidentally, this wasn’t the only reference to “Loser Boy” in the many, many, disgustingly sexual texts these two awful people exchanged. For her part, the fan-turned-groupie responded with “LOL, ha ha! Yeah, he’s kind of a loser but what can I say? I feel sorry for him and if we break up I don’t know what he’ll do. He was always insecure and angry, but since he lost his job and is churning out these shitty listicles just to pay his rent his anger and resentment have gotten out of control. We need to be careful.”

Gee, Meredith, I’m sorry you feel that way. You sure didn’t seem to think I was a loser when I was paying your way through vet school but I guess now that I’m barely making any money my needs and desires don’t matter anymore, just those of your new movie star boyfriend. 

5. Kind of hard to get cast in movies when you’re buried in an unmarked grave in New Jersey, eh? 

Meredith, you should have heard the way Elwes pleaded for his life! He was so terrified of his impending assassination that he soiled himself and was crying like a baby even before the gun was put in his mouth. He was all, “She meant nothing to me!” and “She was just another one night stand, no different from the rest. I get my dick wet in every town I visit. I can’t help it! I’m a sex addict!” 

Hear that, Meredith? Before things went dark forever, he said you meant nothing and used the repulsive phrase “get my dick wet” unironically. Is that who you want to run away with? Does that sound like the dashing prince of your dreams? Or are those the scared words of a silly womanizer receiving a long overdue reckoning at the hands of one of the many men he had wronged? 

Yes, due to those factors, and more, Elwes’ career has sadly faded with time, rendering him all but unemployable in today’s crazy, Darwinian, kill-or-be-killed pop-culture world. 

Help ensure a future for the Happy Place during an uncertain era AND get sweet merch by pledging to the site’s Patreon account at https://www.patreon.com/nathanrabinshappyplace

Also, BUY the RIDICULOUSLY SELF-INDULGENT, ILL-ADVISED VANITY EDITION of  THE WEIRD ACCORDION TO AL, the Happy Place’s first book. This 500 page extended edition features an introduction from Al himself (who I co-wrote 2012’s Weird Al: The Book with), who also copy-edited and fact-checked, as well as over 80 illustrations from Felipe Sobreiro on entries covering every facet of Al’s career, including his complete discography, The Compleat Al, UHF, the 2018 tour that gives the book its subtitle and EVERY episode of The Weird Al Show and Al’s season as the band-leader on Comedy Bang! Bang! 

Only 23 dollars signed, tax and shipping included, at the https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop or for more, unsigned, from Amazon here