David Harbour might not have been a well-known actor in 2005, but his career had been arcing upward since 1999 thanks to several critically acclaimed performances on- and off-Broadway. At 6'3", he had a sturdy, formidable presence. He could use that imposing frame to his advantage or play against it to sympathetic or pathetic effect. When you're this good in New York City, you're guaranteed at least one "Law & Order" role; Harbour booked three. When he made himself available for movies, he nailed down four parts within a year of each other. One of those was as Tom Cruise's bar buddy in Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds." If you're struggling to remember his character, let me help you out: he got cut from the film's final cut.

These things happen. Just ask Kevin Costner. Or Tom Scharpling. When the movie gets edited together, and your character exists solely to provide a bit of backstory and/or emotional shading for the protagonist in one scene, you're probably destined for the cutting room floor. Harbour made his peace with this. Or so he thought.

In an interview with Yahoo!'s Kevin Polowy, Harbour acknowledged his strong suspicion that he wasn't making the final cut. The scene in question reveals why Tom Cruise's dock-worker dad is late to pick up his son in the morning: he works the graveyard shift and hits the bar for a few post-work drinks with his buddy at eight in the morning. "It was not a great scene," says Harbour. "It was also not a necessary scene to the film at all … And we shot it, and I remember thinking it was probably going to get cut, but Spielberg was there and it was so exciting to meet him. He cast me. And then, you know, it just got cut, just never wound up in the movie."

Spielberg The Barbarian

Brush it off, and move on, right?

Harbour did precisely that until he landed a role in Sam Mendes' "Revolutionary Road" three years later. The prestige drama starred Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio and was co-financed by Spielberg's DreamWorks Pictures. Mendes had scored an Oscar triumph for DreamWorks in 1999, so it made sense for the legendary filmmaker to keep tabs on the production. A little while later, Harbour ran into Spielberg at a table read for another movie. The director approached him and inadvertently stomped all over his heart. According to Harbour, "[H]e was just 'Oh, David, I just want to say I really love you in 'Revolutionary Road.' I think you're just terrific. We're so happy. I really one day would love to work with you.' And I did not bring up the fact that we had already worked together and he had cut me out of his movie."

Time may heal most wounds, but getting kicked in the junk twice by one of the greatest filmmakers of all time might take more than a few years. What I'm saying is that Spielberg better cast Harbour in his forthcoming "Bullitt" movie. Give the big man his due.

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