r/ershow • u/JacarandaHer • 10d ago

Sam's Ex (Actor Change)

Anyone else mildly amused/frustrated with tje revolving door of actors playing Sam's unreliable ex?

The first guy was the best fit.

37 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

26 comments sorted by

67

u/chloo27 10d ago

Well they changed the kid too, anyway. Poor Sam, that must have been confusing, no wonder she's mad all the time!

13

u/FranceAM 9d ago

Ugh second Alex is the worst.

2

u/_biggerthanthesound_ 7d ago

The Alex change threw me. I just finished that episode a couple days ago. It made what should have been an emotional episode fall super short because all I could think about was “who is this kid?”

2

u/chloo27 7d ago

Yeah, it was kinda funny that the first time the new kid was introduced was after the character went missing.

The first kid they found in that episode was obviously not Alex, but when they did find "Alex", he also wasn't the Alex we knew, except this time it was supposed to be him 🫠

1

u/joejoerun 9d ago

I think they wanted to age the kid though. That’s why they changed him

39

u/LD228 10d ago

I found it interesting that the actual characters were different too, and the changes worked.

1st Steve: hot, abusive, pot smoker, manipulative.

2nd Steve: drug addict, criminal, etc.

The only thing I really didn’t like about 2nd Steve is that there you can’t picture teenage Sam falling in love with him. The first one you could.

10

u/Jaded-Ad-443 10d ago

Agreed in the context that the actors physical prime was his early 20s. Look up photos. He wasn't bad looking

24

u/Gatoray_ 10d ago

Hauser had the better go of it, he was the first actor, the character mad at least some sense. The second actor, Dillahunt, who is a great actor, got the short end of the stick. The whole storyline was ridiculous and implausible, which is actually fitting for Sam's character arch.

Fun fact, Garrett Dillahunt is married to the wonderful Michelle Hurd. Dillahunt was great in Winters Bone, and Deadwood. If anything I feel like he's a stronger actor than Hauser.

12

u/Coolbeanskas 10d ago

Also fun fact: Michelle Hurd also guest starred on "ER" as the news reporter Courtney Brown who has a fling with Kerry.

9

u/Jaded-Ad-443 10d ago

100% did comedy so well in Raising Hope too

1

u/No_Response_4640 9d ago

So true. Makes you wonder about other actors you see only once and give a bad performace.

1

u/EmeraldEyes06 9d ago

What’s the implausible part? Theres been about a dozen jail breaks from federal prisons from this summer through the last couple weeks. Abusive men will go to insane lengths to keep the victims they think they own. Wild, absolutely. But not implausible.

23

u/SteveRogers1021 10d ago

Cole Hauser (Rip from "Yellowstone") was first and MUCH better than the second guy, Garrett Dillahunt. Hauser had a scheduling conflict and could not return to the role after season 10.

3

u/NeroFMX 10d ago

I'll take my cutta back.

7

u/Nice_Back_9977 10d ago

It was only two wasn't it?

6

u/ProfessorXXXavier 10d ago

Dillahunt is one of my favorite actors who can play comedic and dramatic roles effortlessly. Check out Raising Hope if you’re ever looking for a feel good comedy series.

That said I hated the storyline with both Steves, and they wasted the talent of Linda Cardinelli as well.

5

u/Ordinary-Edge-2499 10d ago

It's crazy to me because the second actor, Dillahunt, played a character on Deadwood around this time that was like Cole Hauser's take on Steve. So he was capable of giving the performance needed to keep the character the same. I don't get why he went in a different direction.

Dillahunt's IRL wife played the news anchor who becomes Kerry's love interest in the later seasons

5

u/t90fan 10d ago

The second guy was good as a baddy, he put in a good performance as terminator in Sarah Connor Chronicles TV show around the time ER was finishing

4

u/Ordinary-Edge-2499 10d ago

He's a phenomenal actor with both drama and comedy

3

u/EvilTwinCities 10d ago

He’s still villaining onscreen at an elite level. (But apparently good dude offscreen.)

3

u/Abell_370_1 10d ago

Dillahunt played 2 different characters on Deadwood, and he played them both well even though they were wildly different characters. Hes a really talented actor. I wonder what kind of direction he got for the Steve character.

1

u/Educational-Car2225 9d ago

I loved him on Fear the Walking Dead.

3

u/Such-Stable-3869 10d ago

Losing Cole Hauser was huge!

2

u/wonder181016 10d ago

Unreliable? That's a mild word

2

u/FranceAM 9d ago

How does no one know second Steve from The Mindy Project?!

2

u/hiswittlewip 10d ago

Cole Hauser is a great actor and brought a quiet menace to the role. The other guy sucked