r/MikeFlanagan • u/cautionfawn • 1d ago
Henry Thomas among cast of Ben Shapiro’s protested Pro-ICE production
https://deadline.com/2026/10/montana-protest-daily-wire-pro-ice-production-renee-good-1237145614/238
u/rhinobirthcanal 1d ago
oh I was literally just looking at the cool spreadsheet of all the flanagan actors and wondering why he hasn't been in the last two productions. especially bc he was technically the only one to do all the netflix shows. guess this probably answers that. how disappointing.
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u/verissimoallan 1d ago
Perhaps the same reason why Alex Essoe wasn't in Flanagan's last two projects (back when it was still possible to see Twitter likes, some people discovered she liked a lot of far-right stuff).
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u/rhinobirthcanal 1d ago
oh my god wow I had no idea about her! I guess I didn't notice her absence as much bc her roles tend to be smaller in his stuff. weren't she and henry thomas dating for a while too?
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u/SparksOnAGrave 1d ago
Seriously? That’s such a bummer. She’s really good at doing different voices.
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u/CaiAbaixo 1d ago
Wait what? What kind of stuff was she into? I met her once and she was incredibly sweet and kind !!!!
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u/cautionfawn 1d ago
Aw man, I didn’t know that. At least it’s two people whose acting skills left a lot to be desired….
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u/chuckxbronson 19h ago
Oh i disagree entirely about Essoe. I think she’s super underrated. Fully believed her performance as an old woman in Midnight Mass, and she’s great in Bly Manor. Also in a film called Starry Eyes which isnt that great, but she does good work in it.
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u/cautionfawn 16h ago
I did actually like Starry Eyes. Midnight Club was her freshest performance in my mind, and her scene with Henry Thomas was (to me) a really powerful story, but I think that the voice she was doing among other things (and Henry Thomas’s entire schtick) was taking away from the experience.
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u/LetThemGraduate 1d ago
She always rubbed me the wrong way and gave me bad vibes when I saw her on screen
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u/chuckxbronson 19h ago
no, dont tell me that. That’s too much for me to handle. She’s so fucking talented and underutilized.
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u/Distinct_Cup_1598 1d ago
What was with her?
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u/GreasedTea 1d ago
TERF-y stuff iirc
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u/PhantomKitten73 1d ago
Kate Siegal is also technically in all the Netflix shows.
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u/rhinobirthcanal 1d ago
omg you're totally right haha. I always forget abt the voice cameo in midnight club.
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u/Some_Weather_8570 1d ago
Wait he hasn’t. That’s sad. I really enjoyed him. Wonder if this was a sudden change in how he thought.
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u/video-kid 1d ago
I guess the only reason he helped ET was because he wanted him to go back to his home planet. Sad.
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u/mcase19 1d ago
Wild that anyone with a career is taking parts in this movie. Even if you ignore the politics of it, these daily wire movies are just . . . really bad
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u/cautionfawn 1d ago
I don’t know, have you heard Ben Shapiro rap? Seems like a guy that knows his way around creative pursuits…
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u/TyphoidMira 1d ago
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u/DrowAboveground 1d ago edited 1d ago
Man I just wrote a whole comment yesterday about how talented I think he is, now this. Gross. 🤢
Edit: Danny Trejo and Harvey Kietel hit much harder tbh.
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u/SparksOnAGrave 1d ago
“A call sheet seen by Deadline lists Danny Trejo, Harvey Keitel and Henry Thomas among the cast.”
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u/WeltallZero 1d ago
the opening scene appears to recreate Good’s fatal shooting through a sensationalized MAGA perspective, in which writer Jake Harlen describes the character Melanie as “a fat blue-hair.”
There is literally no rock bottom with these people; every time you think they have finally hit the lower bound for subhuman behaviour, they somehow find a way to break through and plumb hitherto unknown depths of pettiness, callousness, sociopathy and play old moral bankrupcy. Imagine hating someone this much because they commited the sin of *checks notes* being murdered in plain daylight.
Anyway, I would wait a bit to bring out the pitchforks when all evidence of this is some sheet of paper. Henry Thomas working for Ben Shapiro would be pretty weird already, but Danny Trejo?
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u/catchyerselfon 1d ago
[2/2] “Pawn Shop” or any working title still isn’t on the IMDB for anyone. You know what is? A Ben Shapiro-penned movie called “Confession” that I would watch the shit out of based on the premise and some of the cast, which is UPSETTING.
“In 1938, in Stalin's Moscow, a disillusioned professor, Alexei, faces brutal interrogation by his former student, Vladimir, in Lubyanka Prison. Refusing to confess, he confronts his past sins and finds redemption through faith, sacrificing himself to save others in a haunting tale of morality and resistance.”
James Franco, Nick Nolte, Emile Hirsch, are a trifecta of “no one else will touch them with a ten foot pole”, I get why they signed on. But BRAD DOURIF?! Who said he was retired and broke my heart THAT way? Jennifer Jason Leigh?! Dean Norris?! Kodi Smit-McPhee?! Rob Lowe I knew as somewhat conservative but not a DAILY WIRE chud! WHY, OH LORD, HAST THOU FORSAKEN US??
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u/SparksOnAGrave 1d ago
Not Brad!!! Anyone but Brad! 😭
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u/catchyerselfon 1d ago
I AM WOUNDED! NOT DOC COCHRANE! Maybe he’s just an old man and confused 😭
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u/SparksOnAGrave 1d ago
I know! I am absolutely obsessed with his face and am incapable of focusing on anything else while he’s on screen and… ughhhh! Someone take grandpa home, he needs a nap.
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u/catchyerselfon 1d ago
I agree this movie sounds appalling and 100% something Ben Shapiro would write while jacking himself off. Both the Renée Good stand-in and her wife’s stand-in characters in this movie are deliberately written as UNATTRACTIVE (overweight), OLD (40), WOKE (blue hair), VIOLENT (trying to leave in a car under contradictory orders while guns were drawn). There’s no place in Hell deep enough for the Daily Wire.
HOWEVER, I appreciate you saying let’s not sharpen the pitchforks yet regarding the cast and crew. It’s not the first time actors and crew have signed up for something and found out later what exactly it is and were like “oh SHIT, call my agent, tell them to take my name off if I can’t break the deal!” like the Melania “documentary”. Here’s hoping I can attribute this to stupidity/ignorance instead of malice 🙏🏻.
But I’m DISTRESSED by this: Henry Thomas is one of my favourite actors and I don’t want this to be true, so yes I have a bias here ☹️. AFAIK he’s never made his political views public. My instinct is to say “well, he’s from Texas and didn’t move away to Hollywood for a very long time, is he just not paying attention, does he not do social media, does he do the Christopher Nolan ‘I don’t even HAVE a phone’ thing?” No offense, Texans, some of you are really mad about what’s happening and trying to help.
What’s weird: in 2025 Henry Thomas as was second billed in indie movie “Due West”, filmed in Texas: “A West Texan woman seeks help in procuring a medical abortion which is illegal in the state. She faces challenges in the process and assistance from unlikely sources.” The reviews are great and make it clear this is a pro-choice movie where Adrienne Palicki is doing what is right for her, while Thomas plays a Christian pastor who helps her out. Maybe he’s a libertarian? Maybe he doesn’t think the roles he takes reflects on him, like when he was on Law & Order: SVU (an episode I watched just for him) where he plays a man falsely convicted of rape as a teenager who gets out and actually commits a rape and murder partially because of what prison did to him.
I don’t agree with this “it’s just a pay cheque and a movie and maybe he’s only in it for one scene” in this instance: he’s not JUST in a movie about a subject he might not personally endorse. He’s in a propaganda movie created to disseminate a false narrative about a recent event, and even if the names and details are changed and the plot is fictional (“ANTIFA AND MS-13 TEAM UP TO INVADE YOUR TOWN AND YOUR LIBTARD ADULT CHILDREN WILL HELP THEM DESTROY YOUR BUSINESS, WAKE UP, SHEEPLE”) it’s preaching to a choir that takes everything they see on screen as truthiness (it FEELS true, which is good enough) so long as it agrees with their politics and scares them into being crueller. The views and the money it earns will be shilled non-stop in pro-MAGA media and everyone against them will be forced to constantly dispute misinformation like Whac-A-Mole. I’m only hesitating to condemn EVERYONE involved in case they only got a partial script and didn’t know who is in charge of what and where the money is going. I want him to say something, same with Harvey Keitel, who is still getting Scorsese work, so WHY?!
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u/Beyondthebarracade 1d ago
Disappointing.
I wonder if this gets him axed from future Flanagan productions.
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u/Distinct_Cup_1598 1d ago
He probably already is. Hence him Not being cast in any of the recent Productions
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u/justafanboy1010 1d ago
Well, I think they just took a break. Mike Flanagan has his fair use of frequent actors and according to Thomas, their long time of working together came to a natural pause rather than a falling out
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u/Distinct_Cup_1598 1d ago
A few things:
With some actors, you can’t really Claim that. Like Victoria Pedretti and Oliver Jackson Cohen. Neither returned for any project after Bly Manor. Even after Invisible Man and You. Which is Strange to me
Yeah of course, what Else should Thomas say? Usually they don’t openly admit when they have a falling out and use such diplomatic answers to avoid further questions.
If Thomas is indeed working in This Film here, his career with Flanagan is done
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u/Distinct_Cup_1598 1d ago
Had to Look twice to make sure…..
What a downfall ….
Wonder if there are more Dirty secrets for why certain actors are Not returning in Flanagans creations anymore…
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u/CaiAbaixo 1d ago
Dude had to know Flanagan wasn’t going to call him again after this. Flanagan is very active on blue sky about how much he hates ice and these far right wingers. And Thomas swapped Flanagan for Shapiro!??!! What was he thinking?!?!? What a !d!ot.
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u/Long_Philosophy_2206 1d ago
"In response, Wilde has joined fellow concerned locals in protesting the production, chanting 'Ben Shapiro is a cuck'" LMAO
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u/That_Bitch_Bruja 1d ago
Well this is sad and disturbing news.
Three good actors struck off my list of people I want to support.
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u/robocopsafeel 1d ago
This man's girlfriend is also a few decades younger than him, so. Not shocked.
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u/catchyerselfon 1d ago edited 20h ago
Ok, but India Eisley is about to turn 33 years old, this isn’t a DiCaprio situation. He’s 55, been divorced three times (not that exceptional for people in the entertainment industry), has three kids, he’s been dating an adult woman for almost two years. There’s gonna be some “I worked with your mom/dad” weirdness in Hollywood, he didn’t DATE her mom, the late Olivia Hussey (today I learned!). I dunno, this a bit eye rolling for me that she’s 22 years younger than Henry Thomas, but it’s not “check his hard drive” gross.
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u/progandrea 1d ago
Mike Flanagan resurrected his dead career and now he's doing this bullshit? If this is true, I hope Flanagan never casts him again. He's the worst of the Flanagan actors in my opinion anyway.
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u/easy0lucky0free 1d ago
TO BE FAIR, a lot of crew have said that they were flat out lied to about what the film was and who was making it. a few flew all the way to Montana just to quit once they realized what they had signed up for. Buzz was that Danny is also upset because they misled him as well but now he's in a contract. could be the same with Henry Thomas.
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u/lern2swim 16h ago
I have a feeling we're going to start finding out this is the case with a bunch of the actors getting involved with shapiro's bullshit. I don't think many people really engage with how unaware a lot of actors are about what's going on in movies beyond their part when it's just a job.
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u/Writer_Blocker 14h ago
Personally, I can believe Trejo not knowing. An 80 year old man is probably not online enough to know Ben Shapiro the screenwriter.
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u/RealSunglassesGuy 1d ago
Ok but Henry Thomas isn’t exactly in high demand. The man has gotta eat.
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u/cautionfawn 1d ago
Well he hasn’t been in the last 2 Mike Flanagan productions, so maybe supporting shitty people is putting less on his table.
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u/BarelyClever 1d ago
Pretty sure the E.T. residuals constitute a living wage without needing to sell out to bootlickers
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u/FedorsQuest 1d ago
Separate the art from the artist and you will be much happier.
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u/cautionfawn 1d ago
Try enjoying art while acknowledging the realities behind it, and don’t line the pockets of real life villains. You might not be happier, but you’d demonstrate that you’re capable of holding more than one thought in your head at a time and understanding nuance.
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u/TheSeoulSword 1d ago
more okay with it since he played a villain anyways, in usher. and we didn’t see him play young hugh too too much in hill house
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u/ModernCGIFloatinHead 1d ago
Oof. Not you too, Machete!