Even after his first Academy Award–nominated turn in 2007’s “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” Casey Affleck didn’t always nail his auditions. In a recent sit-down interview on “WTF With Marc Maron,” the “Manchester by the Sea” star and Golden Globe nominee recalled the time when he totally blew it when auditioning for the Coen Brothers—specifically, their 2013 musical film, “Inside Llewyn Davis.” Key word there being “musical.”
“The guy had to sing. He had to sing really, really well,” Affleck recalled for Maron. “The director said, ‘We have to have someone who can really sing and play the guitar.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I can do it.’ I knew I was fucked.”
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Knowing he didn’t yet have the skillset required for the film, but thinking he could skirt by on the old adage, “Fake it ‘til you make it,” Affleck persisted, telling the Coens that he’d been playing the guitar for years and that he could sing to boot. “I thought, it can’t be that hard. I’m going to learn a couple songs,” he said. “So I went and spent a couple weeks killing myself to sing and play the guitar.”
After those weeks, he went ahead and sent a tape in for the writer-directors so they could see for themselves his formidable musical chops. But alas, the role was not his to take. “I sent the tape into the directors and it was like crickets,” he said. “They didn’t even respond it was so bad.” But like any good actor, he looks back in hindsight knowing the role went to the right person. Rejection is an inevitable part of the profession, after all. “Someone else ended up doing it, and he was amazing,” Affleck went on to say of Oscar Isaac’s performance. “That movie, I could watch it over and over again.”
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While working with the likes of the Coen Brothers is a dream for many actors out there, Affleck is quick to say that he doubts the opportunity will come his way again. “I sat in a room with them and looked them in the eye and told them I could sing and play the guitar,” he said. “It’s probably the last time I’ll ever talk to those two guys.”
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