The Devil Wears Prada 2 director David Frankel said he planned to bring back Adrian Grenier for the new movie, but timing was not on his side.
The highly anticipated sequel, in theaters May 1, will see the return of the core original cast, including Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci. Grenier — who played Nate, the toxic boyfriend of Hathaway’s aspiring fashion writer Andy, in the 2006 movie — will not make an appearance.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly about Grenier’s absence, Frankel said: “I had an idea about sneaking him into a cameo, and, in the end, it was just too late in our production schedule to make it happen.”
Asked if he could share the idea behind Nate’s planned cameo, the director responded: “No, I probably shouldn’t say. But, I think I’m thrilled that [Grenier] did a Starbucks commercial, which was really funny and so self-effacing.
“I love the humility and the comedy of it!” Frankel added.
The Entourage actor, 49, recently appeared in a Starbucks commercial for the coffee chain’s new energy refreshers, making light of the situation. “Let’s leave Nate back in 2006 and keep this good energy going,” Grenier quipped in the advertisement.
He previously addressed being left out of the sequel, telling Page Six last month that he was “disappointed” not to have been asked back.
“We’re all fans of the movie, whether or not we’re in it. Obviously, it was a disappointment that I didn’t get the call to be in the sequel, but I also understand there’s some backlash with Nate, the character, so that might have something to do with it,” he said. “But I think that just leaves room for a spinoff.”
Nate has long been a divisive character, largely because of his lack of support for Andy’s demanding career at the fictional Runway magazine.
Although the two ultimately break up at the end of the original movie, Nate briefly returns to inform Andy that he will be moving from New York to Chicago.
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Earlier this week, news broke that Sydney Sweeney’s cameo in The Devil Wears Prada 2 had been cut.
The Euphoria star had filmed a scene with Blunt last year that was set to be included at the beginning of the movie, but according to reports, the scene will no longer appear after a “creative decision” was made to remove it.
Entertainment Weekly reported that Sweeney’s scene did not work structurally with the final version of the movie’s sequence, but that the film’s crew was grateful that The White Lotus alum participated in the shoot.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 premieres in theaters May 1.