Fellow actors like Matthew McConaughey, Forest Whitaker and Michael B. Jordan also join the interview, talking about their past roles and auditions.
- Oct 31, 2013
AceShowbiz - Jake Gyllenhaal once auditioned for "The Lord of the Rings" to play Frodo, and he said he messed it up. The "Source Code" actor opened up about the nightmare audition during a chat for The Hollywood Reporter's The Actor Issue due on newsstand November 8.
"I remember auditioning for 'The Lord of the Rings' and going in and not being told that I needed a British accent. 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," he said.
Matthew McConaughey, meanwhile, addressed rumor that he got a $15M offer to play in "Magnum, P.I." movie. "Let me just throw this at you: That same script with that number really is a whole lot funnier than [when they gave it to] me," he uttered. When pressed further, he said with a smile, "It may be true."
Regardless of how much money they offered, he turned down the role. "I looked around and said: 'I'm paying rent; the kids are good. We got a son coming into the world. [Being a father is] a great job. Let me sit in the shadows for a while on my career side,' " he explained.
The "Dallas Buyers Club" star went on to recall the one time he messed up on set due to lack of preparation. "I go do this film, 'Scorpion Spring', and I got this idea: 'I'm not gonna look at anything. I know what I am: the drug lord on the Mexican border in Texas. I'll just show up on the set, stay fresh and loose'."
"Well, I get down there, OK, and I pick up this scene, and it's a page-and-a-half monologue in Spanish," he added. "I felt this trickle of sweat. 'Um, can you give me 12 minutes?' I haven't watched it yet, but, 'Porque the yellow ...' This is bad. And I said, 'Never again, man.' "
And then there was Forest Whitaker who remembered the one role that pushed him to his limits. "I was playing a schizophrenic [in 'The Last King of Scotland'], and every night I kept working really hard, pushing my head to the point where I started to see the things that I was imagining. I realized there is a way to screw with your brain. It took me a really long time to get myself back to thinking the way I wanted to -- it almost took a year," he said.
The other actors featured in the magazine's latest issue are Josh Brolin, Michael B. Jordan, and Jared Leto. At one point during the group interview, Jordan recalled lying to the casting directors to get a job. "They were getting ready to cast Tupac [for a planned biopic], and when I was auditioning, they were like, 'Can you rap?' And I was just like, 'Sure!' "
