Aaron Marcus played a hospital president on Do No Harm, a TV series with Phylicia Rashad and James Cromwell that was cancelled after just two episodes aired, making it the fastest cancellation in television history. He expected a recurring role but the show vanished, teaching him that nothing in the industry is guaranteed.
Hey, in this video I'm going to be sharing with you how this TV show set an amazing record. Unfortunately, it was a bad one. If you watch this to the end, I've got a great bonus video for you. It's how this famous director lied and actually said this to a famous actor. Okay, let's get started. Hi, my name is Aaron Marcus and welcome to the Acting and Modeling Quick Tips channel and the Actor Career Center. So I, I want to share with you some highs and lows about an experience that I had working on a TV show and how you just can't take anything for granted in this industry. You also can never tell what's going to happen with a project that you work on. So let me give you some details. There was a TV show. It was called Do No Harm, and I was very excited about getting a chance to audition for it, and even more excited about getting cast. There were some phenomenal actors working on this show: Phylicia Rashad, Steve Pasquale, James Cromwell, Lin-Manuel Miranda. Jurnee Smollett. It was just an amazing cast of actors. These people are phenomenal. And I was very excited because I was cast as the president, the head of the hospital. And this is all about people working in a hospital. They They even went out and bought or had made a horrible wig for me. And actually, you can see it right here. I was thinking, even though I was only cast as a day player, meaning I'm working one day, my assumption was I'm going to be— is going to be a recurring role, a recurring role. I mean, first of all, just the, the, the title of my job, it would seem like they would have the head of the hospital involved in a number of episodes. And they spent a lot of money on this wig to make me look really kind of creepy. So I was very excited. And this was back, I think it was 2013, and they initially were scheduled to shoot 13 episodes, and they wound up shooting 12. There was some kind of scheduling conflict, so they shot 12 episodes, and it's about to start airing. I'm excited. And so my wife and I were watching episode 1. I was in episode 4, I believe. That was my first episode. And It was a little bit weird. I'm watching it and look, it's not uncommon. Very first episode, it might not be great. Maybe they haven't quite gotten their footing yet. And but I'm— once again, I'm thinking there are so many great actors in this. Okay, maybe the first episode isn't so good. Now I remember turning to my wife and I was just kind of kidding and I said, oh boy, that wasn't great. I hope it makes it to episode 4. So I don't know if I jinxed it. As it turns out, it ended after the second episode. They canceled, they canceled the show after 2 Episodes. It set a record. I don't think there's ever been any television series that got canceled after the 2nd episode. By the way, just so I don't forget, hey, if you haven't subscribed yet, don't forget, click the subscribe button, the notification bell, so you always know when a new upload— a new video has been uploaded. If you like it, give it a thumbs up and share the link with fellow actors. I was kind of shocked. And what they wound up doing was they didn't air anything after episode 2. And during the summer, I did get a chance to see my episode because I guess there were like a number of shows on hiatus. They needed to fill up space, so they wound up showing the entire series sometime during that summer. And, and by the way, if you've ever experienced something where it just kind of shocked you, you got cast, something bad happened, please share it with us on the channel so that way we can learn from you as well. And I'll tell you, one of the things that I learned from this was that nothing is guaranteed. You know, you could be the, the star of of a project. Who knows? Maybe funding gets cut. Maybe they decided to change some of the characters, and then you're out. Look, people get cast in pilots all the time and never make it to the actual shooting after it gets picked up because they decided to replace you for whatever reason. So it was, it was a little disappointing. It was still what a great experience to work with Phylicia Rashad and Jurnee Smollett. I mean, they're both— they're just great. They're really great. And Steven Pasquale as well, he was really good. And so great experience, very happy about getting cast, but it didn't— it didn't end quite the way that I Had planned. Hey, I did promise I was going to share a bonus video— video— video with you. And so yeah, you'll find the link up there. And it's all about— I was working on a set and I heard this famous director actually saying this to a very famous actor. It also was a— it was a life lesson for me. It really taught me a lot about the industry, and you'll, you'll, you'll see it and hear it in the video. Anyhow, I'm Aaron Marcus. Hope you enjoyed the video and can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya.
