Paul Rudd has revealed he had an audition for a very famous harrowing drama in the early years of his career.
While the Ant-Man star is primarily known for his roles in comedies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Anchorman and This Is 40, he revealed that one major dramatic role slipped through his fingers before his rise to fame.
During an appearance on Dax Shephard’s podcast Armchair Expert, he and the host discussed films that have gone on to become huge in the years after their initial release.
“The famous one is Shawshank Redemption, people would think that was a hit, because we’ve all seen it,” Dax said.
“I read for it,” Paul then revealed. “For the Gil Bellows part. And by the way, [I] couldn’t have been more wrong.
“It was right when I was starting off, I want to say, and I read the script, and I was like, ‘this is really, really good. This is Stephen King?!’.”
Dax then asked the former Friends star if he’d ever been fired from a project, to which he said: “I’ve been cut out of things, but I don’t know if I’ve ever actually been fired. I’m sure there’ve been conversations about it behind the scenes… but not really firing.
“I was in Bridesmaids, I did a few scenes in Bridesmaids, and then when the movie came out they were like, ‘hmmm… you didn’t make the cut’.”
On the subject of roles he’d turned down, Paul recalled one that would ultimately end up becoming a huge success for Bradley Cooper.
“A couple of things have gone on to become successful, and I think that they were successful because of the combination of people that were in it,” he said. “So, it all worked out the way it was supposed to.
“But yeah, there was a moment in time – and it was The Hangover. So, that’s why I don’t go to Caesar’s Palace anymore!
“And by the way, it would have been [a significant amount of money].”
Revealing there was once a role he talked himself out of in his audition, Paul added: “I auditioned for a movie once, and I went in, and all I did was say, ‘I really love the movie, I really love the part… [but] you know who you really should get is this guy named Jack Black’.”
After sharing that the film was the 2000 comedy High Fidelity, Paul added: “It was before Jack really like… and I didn’t know him, I was just a massive fan. So I said, ‘you should try and track down this actor named Jack Black, he’d be great at this’.”
“And by the way,” Paul added. “I’m sure he would have been auditioning for it, and it would have happened anyway, but I do remember pitching him in the audition to [director] Stephen Frears, saying ‘there’s this guy’. It isn’t competition it’s just sheer celebration of what someone can do.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the US actor recalled one talk show appearance he made in the early days of his tenure as Ant-Man that led to him getting a telling off from the bosses at Marvel.
Listen to his full interview on Armchair Expert here.