Jake Gyllenhaal's LoTR Audition Was So Catastrophic, He Was Told To Fire His Agents
At least it was a great learning lesson for the actor.
If you want to be an actor, you have to be prepared to be rejected. In a world where the industry is still mostly concentrated in one place, the chances of getting noticed are incredibly slim, no matter how much talent you have.
Even those actors who now top the ratings and have enormous publicity had to face problems early in their careers. Pretty much everyone in Hollywood has a story of a failed audition that either forced them to quit filmmaking or forever changed their perspective on how to approach new roles.
According to Jake Gyllenhaal, his worst audition failure happened when he was auditioning for one of the most popular fantasy franchises of all time, The Lord of the Rings. Gyllenhaal was hoping to get the role of Frodo Baggins, but ultimately lost out to Elijah Wood.
During an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2016, the actor recalled how badly it went. As it turns out, Gyllenhaal bombed the audition so terribly that he had no chance of getting the part.
At first, he didn't even understand the audition process because there were no lines. The actors were apparently asked to find the ring, and Gyllenhaal was already lost. But when some lines were finally added, things got even worse — to the point where even director Peter Jackson couldn't take it anymore.
"And then I did several lines, and I didn't have an accent — because everyone has a British accent in that, and I didn't do an accent for it. And [Peter Jackson] turned to me and was like, 'You are the worst actor that I've ever seen.' He was like, 'Did anyone tell you you're supposed to have an accent?' I was like, 'No.' And he said, 'Well, fire your agents.'"
While the experience must have been embarrassing, the final casting decision worked really well for the franchise. The role of the Hobbit went to Elijah Wood, and Jake Gyllenhaal got a chance to find out which roles suited him and his acting style best.