15milestation:Joel mentioned in a recent interview that he was quite upset once when he was passed o
15milestation:Joel mentioned in a recent interview that he was quite upset once when he was passed over for a role he desperately wanted because he didn’t look aristocratic enough. The film was “Amazing Grace" and the actor who ultimately snagged the role was his “Black Mass” co-star Benedict Cumberbatch: :-) “I did a really good audition and I worked really hard to get the job. The director ummed and ahhed on me for weeks. Finally, he said, ‘My issue with Joel is that he doesn’t strike me as blue-blooded enough.’…When he looked at me, I didn’t seem like the upper-class, silver-spoon type. Inside, I was like, ‘No, no, I can be that!’… Now I’ve completely given up all those feelings of ‘Arghhh!’ because if I was the director, I would’ve picked the other guy too!” “[They wanted] someone who’s supposed to be, you know, blue-blooded, Eton-educated, British, playing the youngest Prime Minister of Britain.” When Joel saw the Harrovian Benedict in the part, he had to resignedly admit that he understood why Benedict had beaten him out for the role: “Of course, I didn’t get the job. I could ACT the part, but the kid that came along and did the part, he’d been there. He WAS that kid.” So whilst Benedict was elegantly gliding around in Parliament being erudite and aristocratic in silk stockings and wigs, poor Joel had to accept his plebian roots and was relegated to clumping around in Vegas in a hideous haircut and oversized tracksuit as the comically inept, dim-witted bodyguard Hugo in “Smokin’ Aces.” :-) -- source link