Reese Witherspoon has recalled a disastrous audition with Robert De Niro, saying it was so bad the Hollywood legend remembered it a decade later.
Talking about her early career on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Reese brought up the tryout she had at age 14 for Cape Fear, the 1991 drama featuring De Niro as a psychopath.
She remembered walking into the room where De Niro and director Martin Scorsese were waiting. She said she was already rattled by the receptionist proclaiming of De Niro right before: “You know he’s the most important actor of our time.”
When it came time to act opposite De Niro, the Legally Blonde star said she couldn’t remember a word in the script and “he had to say the word for me ... he had to finish the lines for me.”
She couldn’t recall the word in question but remembered being mortified 10 years later when she again tried out with the Raging Bull star.
“I thought, he’s never gonna remember that I bricked that audition,” Reese said. “And he’s like, ‘I remember you .. You’re the one who couldn’t say the word.’”
“Oh my god, this is so bad,” she said to herself.
Reese, who won an Oscar for Walk The Line, has told the anecdote before, but it bears repeating as a funny lesson of hope for aspiring thespians out there.
And it should be noted that she was actually slated to star opposite De Niro in the 2015 comedy The Intern, but Anne Hathaway reportedly replaced her because Reese had a scheduling conflict.
Her latest project is the Netflix movie Your Place Or Mine, which begins streaming on Feb. 10.