Suits and Yellowstone star Neal McDonough has opened up about how his decision not to kiss other actors on screen resulted in him losing 'everything' in Hollywood.
McDonough, 59, has become a familiar face on screen through decades in the industry, during which he's appeared in popular titles like Tulsa King, Band of Brothers and Captain America: The First Avenger.
The actor is married to Ruvé Robertson, who he met while filming Band of Brothers in 2000 when Robertson was working as a public relations specialist and model.
They went on to marry in 2003, and have since welcomed five children together.
Advert
In a new interview on the Nothing Left Unsaid podcast, McDonough explained that Robertson 'didn't have any problem' with him kissing other actors for roles, but he personally wasn't comfortable with the idea of being intimate with someone other than his wife.
He said: "I’d always had in my contracts I wouldn’t kiss another woman on-screen. My wife didn’t have any problem with it. It was me, really, who had a problem with it. 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 recalled speaking with people in the industry who questioned why he was fine with 'kill[ing] thousands of people' in his movies, but not kissing anyone, to which he argued: "You're not really killing anybody. Intimacy is a whole different thing."
The actor went on to reveal that when he refused to kiss other women, producers 'couldn't understand it' and Hollywood 'just completely turned' on him.
He continued: "For two years, I couldn’t get a job and I lost everything you could possibly imagine. Not just houses and 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 lost in a tailspin."
McDonough admitted he was in a 'big ugly tail spin' for a couple of years, leading him to drink more alcohol, but eventually his wife encouraged him to start going back to church.
"Then when I stopped drinking, everything just kind of changed," he said. "Literally the clouds parted. I was like, 'Oh, I don't need this crutch. Oh, people are calling me. Oh, I am successful. Oh, I do like myself again. Okay, I am God's child and I have a job to do. Stop wallowing in self-pity. Dust yourself off and go hit it hard.'
"And ever since that day, I've hit it as hard as possible. At 59 years old, I'm more busy than I've ever been in my whole life."
McDonough has most recently starred in the drama The Last Rodeo, which arrived in theaters in May.
Topics: Hollywood, Celebrity, Film and TV
Emily Brown