One of 2005’s most buzzed-about blockbusters nearly had a different leading lady.
During an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Thursday, Gwen Stefani briefly recalled auditioning for the part of Jane Smith in Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Angelina Jolie went on to play the role in the film, which also starred Brad Pitt.
“Angelina beat me,” the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter quipped as the audience collectively gasped.
And though she didn’t disclose any specifics about the audition, she added, “That could’ve been a different story.”
Watch Gwen Stefani’s appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show below.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith, directed by Doug Limon, follows a bored suburban couple whose marriage is thrown into a tailspin after they discover they are assassins for competing agencies and have been assigned to kill each other.
The movie was a critical and commercial smash, reportedly raking in $486 million at the box office worldwide. Its production, however, was a publicity frenzy given that it marked the start of Brad’s romance with Angelina while he was still married to actor Jennifer Aniston.
Though Gwen’s unsuccessful Mr. & Mrs. Smith tryout appeared to come as a surprise to most of Ellen’s audience, she’s touched on the subject before.
“It was between me and Angelina Jolie, and I’m like, ‘Oh, great. I got a shot here,’” she said of the project in a 2008 Vogue interview.
“The whole acting thing really feels like something I could do. Whenever I’ve done it, whenever I had moments where it works, it’s just like performing. You hit a moment. And that’s what movies are: a series of moments.”
And while Gwen missed out on the part of Jane Smith, she did score a 2005 Screen Actors Guild Award nomination as part of the ensemble cast of Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.