Neal McDonough is opening up about being shut out of Hollywood because of one personal rule he has while filming.
McDonough has landed roles in several high-profile shows over the years, including Yellowstone, Suits, Desperate Housewives, and more.
But getting offered opportunities like that hasn’t been easy for the actor.
On a recent episode of the Nothing Left Unsaid podcast, McDonough revealed that Hollywood largely turned its back on him because he refuses to kiss his costars.
“I always had in my contracts that I wouldn’t kiss another woman on screen,” McDonough said. “My wife didn’t have any problem with it. It was me, really, who had a problem. I was like, ‘Yeah, I don’t want to put you through it. I know we’re going to start having kids, and I don’t want to put my kids through it.'”
McDonough, who married his wife in 2003, went on to explain that his decision not to kiss anyone on screen has made it difficult for him to get hired for acting gigs.
“Intimacy is a whole different thing for me. So, when I wouldn’t do it and and they couldn’t understand it, Hollywood just completely turned on me and they wouldn’t let me be part of the show anymore,” he went on to say.
The 59-year-old also shared that he was once fired from a TV show after refusing to do an intimate scene.
McDonough didn’t end up naming the show that let him go. However, he admitted that it caused his career to take a hit for a couple of years.
“It was a horrible situation for me,” he recalled. “After that, I couldn’t get a job because everybody thought I was this religious zealot. I am very religious. I put God and family first, and me second. That’s what I live by. It was hard for a few years.”
He went on to describe just how bad things actually got because of his personal beliefs.
“I couldn’t get a job and I lost everything you could possibly imagine. Not just houses, material things, but your swagger, your cool, who you are, your identity, everything. My identity was an actor, and a really good one, and once you don’t have that identity, you’re kind of in a tailspin. And I was in a big, ugly tailspin for a couple of years.”
Although it’s been a tough road in Hollywood for McDonough, he’s recently made a strong comeback. He released a new film titled The Last Rodeo, which he wrote, directed, and starred in.
He even cast his wife as his love interest in the movie.