Stories of famous actors who failed the audition?

[Equipoise]

@JozefKafka

In 1986 Phil Hartman tried out for announcer – not host, announcer – on the new Hollywood Squares. He was turned down. This made him available when Saturday Night Live held a casting call a few weeks later. Hartman: "I sometimes wonder where’d I be if I’d gotten that announcing job…"

Alive, probably. He met his wife, the one who murdered him, a year later.

[Koxinga]

@Equipoise

Alive, probably. He met his wife, the one who murdered him, a year later.

Had just the same thought.

Vin Diesel has often been coy about his ethnicity, but it’s pretty widely known he’s mostly black and Italian.

And yet, he’s regularly been turned down for Italian roles because he looked too black, and he’s also been turned down regularly for black roles, because he didn’t look quite black enough.

I don’t know much about Vin Diesel, but I don’t know why this would be surprising. Same for the guy mentioned upthread who was “too Asian/not Asian enough” – if an actor deviates from the archetypes for two different ethnicities but falls somewhere in the middle, then duh, he doesn’t fit either archetype.

Now, if Paula Abdul had been rejected from a role for not looking at all Jewish – that would be irony.

[TV_time]

Virtually every major actress in Hollywood and New York (including Bette Davis, Lucille Ball, Paullette Goddard, Talulla Bankhead, Joan Crawford, etc.) auditioned for the Scarlett O’Hara role in Gone With The Wind and didn’t get it. Then this English chick showed up.

Roy Rogers (then singer Leonard Sly) thought his acting career was over until Gene Autry had a fight with the studio head about salary and went on strike thus opening the door for Rogers.

[Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela]

Professional singer checking in here - if I’m getting one job for every 10 auditions I do, I’m doing pretty well. The rejection rate is higher for actors, and for dancers it’s excruciating.

Staying the course in a performing arts career in the face of these kind of odds can be a real challenge - of the 20 people with me in a professional level program at the (then) Banff School of Fine Arts in 1982, only 2 of us are still performing professionally as soloists on a regular basis. One other has formed his own company and divides his time between church organist, choir director, university professor and performer in shows which he himself organizes.

It’s a calling more than a job, really. I’m hoping your friend might find that of some comfort.

[adhemar]

Not exactly the same thing but Charlie Chaplin lost in a Charlie Chaplin look alike contest. So some days you aren’t even the best at being yourself much less cast as someone else.

[Koxinga]

@adhemar

Not exactly the same thing but Charlie Chaplin lost in a Charlie Chaplin look alike contest. So some days you aren’t even the best at being yourself much less cast as someone else.

If that happened to Meryl Streep the universe would implode, or something.

[Jackmannii]

@Nonsuch

The Beatles were rejected by Decca records after submitting to a recording test, yes.

They also were turned down by two EMI labels before being signed by another EMI division, Parlophone.

Decca got some revenge later, when The Who were rejected by EMI and then signed with Decca.

[furlibusea]

@Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela

Professional singer checking in here - if I’m getting one job for every 10 auditions I do, I’m doing pretty well. The rejection rate is higher for actors, and for dancers it’s excruciating.

Staying the course in a performing arts career in the face of these kind of odds can be a real challenge - of the 20 people with me in a professional level program at the (then) Banff School of Fine Arts in 1982, only 2 of us are still performing professionally as soloists on a regular basis. One other has formed his own company and divides his time between church organist, choir director, university professor and performer in shows which he himself organizes.

It’s a calling more than a job, really. I’m hoping your friend might find that of some comfort.

Hey, I was at Banff in 1982 in the Theatre Crafts and Design program. I wonder if I know you. We hung out some with the opera singers because theirs was the only program that was there as long as ours.

[Nonsuch]

@adhemar

Not exactly the same thing but Charlie Chaplin lost in a Charlie Chaplin look alike contest. So some days you aren’t even the best at being yourself much less cast as someone else.

In a related vein, a young actress named Gloria Swanson auditioned for Charlie Chaplin when both were signed to the Essanay film company. Her audition was stiff and Chaplin gave her a minor role in one film and never used her again. Swanson admitted years later she didn’t want to get stuck playing comedies and deliberately tanked the audition.

[Sam_Stone]

Christopher Walken was passed over for the Han Solo Part in Star Wars…

And Walter Matthau never made it as Obi-Wan Kenobi.

More seriously, apparently Kurt Russell was turned down for the part of Han Solo, if that youtube clip is to be believed.

[Bosstone]

@Sam_Stone

More seriously, apparently Kurt Russell was turned down for the part of Han Solo, if that youtube clip is to be believed.

Oh, wow. I think Kurt Russell may be the only person other than Harrison Ford I could see as Han Solo.

Well, Nathan Fillion too, but he’s a few decades too late.

[Don_Draper]

I happened to be looking at the IMDB page for Fame (the original) and the trivia section mentions that Madonna(!) tried out for roles in both the movie & TV series versions, and was shot down twice.