Some actors are so desperate to impress during auditions they end up taking things a little too far.
From assaulting co-stars to stripping for no reason, here are some of the best stories.
Michelle Pfeiffer
Director Brian De Palma was extremely keen on Michelle Pfeiffer to play the female lead on Scarface, but lead actor Al Pacino wasn’t so sure.
At the screen test, Pacino got his comeuppance and was finally convinced.
“We did the restaurant scene … where I kind of freak out,” Pfeiffer explained to Jimmy Fallon in an interview.
“I threw dishes and everything went flying and I broke things. There was blood everywhere!”
Assistants rushed to her aid but couldn’t find any cuts on Pfeiffer.
“I look over and Al [Pacino] is bleeding,” she said, “and that’s how I got the part!”
Mel Gibson
At the audition for the original Mad Max, Mel Gibson turned up solely to support a friend. Gibson had been in a fight the night before, but this ended up working in his favour, giving him the look the director was looking for. George Miller asked him to read the script and then to audition; and the rest is history.
Margot Robbie
The Australian actress made quite an impression during her audition with Leonardo DiCaprio for The Wolf of Wall Street.
“In my head I was like: ‘You have literally 30 seconds left in this room and if you don’t do something impressive nothing will ever come of it. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance, just take it’,” Robbie told Harper’s Bazaar.
“And so I start screaming at him and he’s yelling back at me. And he’s really scary. I can barely keep up.
“And he ends it saying: ‘You should be happy to have a husband like me. Now get over here and kiss me.’ So I walk up really close to his face and then I’m like: ‘Maybe I should kiss him. When else am I ever going to get a chance to kiss Leo DiCaprio, ever?’
“But another part of my brain clicks and I just go – Whack! I hit him in the face. And then I scream: ‘Fu*k you!’ And that’s not in the script at all. The room just went dead silent and I froze.”
Dakota Johnson
Nothing shocks like a bit of nudity. Dakota Johnson decided to use this to her advantage in one audition, but wasn’t prepared for the unexpected consequences.
“I had an audition, and I got really into it, got really into the scene and it was really dramatic and I took my shirt off, and then you didn’t have to do that,” Dakota Johnson told The Hollywood Reporter.
“And then afterwards, they were like: ‘Uh, that was great. That was really nice,’ and I said: ‘Thanks,’ and had to pick my shirt up off the floor and still talk to them and put it back on. It was inappropriate. And embarrassing.”
Jake Gyllenhaal
Lord of the Rings could have been a very different movie.
“I remember auditioning for The Lord of the Rings [the role of Frodo] … and not being told that I needed a British accent,” Gyllenhaal told The Hollywood Reporter. “I really do remember Peter Jackson saying to me, ‘You know that you have to do this in a British accent?’ We heard back it was literally one of the worst auditions.”
Have you heard of a crazy audition story?
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