Do we like Cas Anvar?
Our score: 4 out of 10. Nothing harmful found from him, but unresolved allegations from 2020 and a thin public record leave us unable to say more.
Anvar is best known as Alex Kamal, the pilot on The Expanse, the sci-fi show that Syfy cancelled and Amazon picked up and renewed. For a few years he was one of the faces of a fan-loved series.
That changed in June 2020. Twitter users posted accounts alleging inappropriate conduct, with one user alleging he pressured her to his hotel room at a convention. Deadline reported that more women came forward over several days, sharing screenshots of messages they say he sent. It also reported that none of the alleged incidents happened on the show's set, and that several involved fan conventions.
Alcon Entertainment, the studio behind the show, confirmed it had hired an outside firm to investigate. Anvar told TheWrap he welcomed the investigation, and in a later statement said he wanted to refute the claims. The findings were never made public. Deadline reported in November 2020 that the final season would go ahead without him, and Alex was killed off in the season five finale.
On the harm test, we found nothing. No remarks about trans people, women, migrants, vaccines or the climate turned up in our searches, and no pattern of working with people who push those things. That is an absence of evidence in a thin record, not a glowing reference.
Some of the accusations reportedly involved minors, according to Nerdist's account of the 2020 allegations, and that is why this one is hard to wave through. Allegations are not findings, and no court case against him turned up. The studio's parting of ways is also not a verdict, since it never explained its reasons publicly.
We couldn't verify any charity work or causes from established outlets, and nothing new has been reported on him lately that we could confirm. So on the good-person test the honest answer is mixed. Weigh the allegations and his denial-style response, and decide how much weight an unexplained exit deserves.