Jeffrey Jones, ‘Ferris Bueller’ Actor And Convicted Sex Offender, Has Part In New ‘Deadwood’ Movie

As the #MeToo movement gained steam in the last two years, many men in media and Hollywood have had their careers suffer, if they weren’t derailed altogether, as a result of accusations. This has led to a lot of difficult conversations about when, and under what circumstances, those accused of such things might return to their former careers.

One actor, who starred three decades ago in a beloved movie, was accused at one point of a particularly heinous crime — and has a role in a high-profile upcoming movie.

Jeffrey Jones, a character actor who is best known for playing Principal Edward Rooney in the 1986 film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, pleaded no contest in 2002 to charges that he had solicited an underage boy to take pornographic pictures of him. The plea required Jones to register as a sex offender, though he was charged again in 2010, per NBC Los Angeles, with failing to update his sex offender registration.

Jones worked regularly in the years before his arrest, most notably in the films of Tim Burton, but after his legal troubles, one of his only notable roles was on Deadwood, the HBO Western series that aired from 2004 to 2006, on which he played newspaper publisher A.W. Merrick.

Now, Deadwood is returning for its long-awaited TV movie, which is airing on HBO May 31. And Jones, despite his arrests and sex offender status, is in the cast.

Gold Derby reported Thursday that Jones was present at the movie’s premiere at the Arclight Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, and TV critic Matt Zoller Seitz, who has seen the film and visited the set, tweeted this week that Jones is in the movie briefly. The actor’s IMDb page also lists Jones as appearing in the film, although his name was not included in most of the original news stories that stated the cast when the movie was first announced.

The 72-year-old Jones has not worked very much since the end of Deadwood in 2006. He appeared in the comedy Who’s Your Caddy in 2007 and a film called 10.0 Earthquake in 2014, but no other feature films in that period, until the new Deadwood.

Most of the original cast of the Deadwood series is scheduled to return for the movie, with the exception of the deceased Powers Boothe, as well as Titus Welliver, who is currently starring on Bosch and was not available. Other actors, such as Keith Carradine and Jim Beaver, are not in the film because their characters died in the original series.