There are bad auditions, and then there are auditions that involve a “real pod,” fake grass, and the mortifying belief that you might actually be about to land one of the biggest roles in Hollywood. While trading worst-audition stories with Seth Rogen on the A24 Podcast, where the two were discussing their new film, “The Invite” (read our review), Olivia Wilde recalled going up for the lead role in “Gravity,” the part ultimately played by Sandra Bullock in Alfonso Cuarón’s Oscar-winning survival thriller. And, according to Wilde, the process was elaborate enough to make everyone involved think they had a serious shot.
“I think quite a few of us thought we were getting the role in ‘Gravity’ that was Sandra Bullock’s,” Wilde admitted, laughing at the memory. “They put us in a pod. It felt very legit because they had a real pod.”
“And I bet everyone who made it to the pod is like, ‘I’m fucking in!’” Rogen quipped. “‘They’re not putting just anyone in this f*cking pod!’”
“That’s right!” Wilde said, blushing and laughing in agreement.
When Rogen asked how many actresses had been put “in the pod,” Wilde suggested the room likely included plenty of actresses from the same Hollywood peer group.
“It was me and, like, everyone you can imagine of the same, like, year of Hollywood high school that we’re all in,” Wilde said, before naming Kate Hudson, Jessica Chastain, and Sienna Miller as actresses who were in contention. She also suggested Anne Hathaway may have been in the mix: “I feel like Hathaway’s probably in the pod.”
Wilde also remembered having to perform one of the film’s most physically intense moments: Bullock’s character’s return to Earth. In the audition version, that apparently meant crawling around on fake grass in a room somewhere.
“When I think of the footage that exists…,” Wilde said, referring to her audition tape. “It was the crawling out of the pod back onto Earth.”
“No! You had to do that in an audition scene?” Rogen asked in horror, seemingly embarrassed on her behalf. “Yeah,” Wilde replied. “On the ground. There was like some fake grass.”
Rogen called it “the worst thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life,” joking that Wilde had to sell the scene “on the AstroTurf of an audition room.”
The “Gravity” audition was not the only painful one Wilde remembered. She also brought up auditioning for Terrence Malick’s “The Tree Of Life,” calling that experience “hideously embarrassing” as well.
“It was so weird,” Wilde said, recalling Malick’s confusing direction as, “Be grace.”
Wilde joked that her response apparently involved a lot of awestruck wandering and muttering.b“Oh wow. Look at all this,” Wilde said, recreating her audition. “Oh, wow. This is crazy.”
Then there was “Rock Of Ages,” where Wilde said she sang opposite Tom Cruise. The actor, she said, was “such a nice man” and “so encouraging” during the audition, telling her, “You got this.” The song was Foreigner’s “I Want To Know What Love Is,” which Wilde noted is “not an easy song.”
Rogen had his own nightmare audition story, too, recalling that he once read for “Gigli,” the infamous Ben Affleck/Jennifer Lopez film directed by Martin Brest. Rogen said he auditioned for the role that ultimately went to Justin Bartha, a cognitively impaired character, and admitted he went all in on a performance that, by his own telling, would be catastrophic to revisit today.
“If that tape got out, it would destroy my career,” Rogen howled. “It would end me. It would fully end me.”
Wilde countered that his “Gigli” audition “might be better than me singing with Tom Cruise,” but Rogen wasn’t so sure.
“It’s pretty bad,” he said, laughing hysterically. “It was bad!”
“Gravity” ultimately became a major awards player, winning seven Academy Awards and earning Bullock a Best Actress nomination. Wilde, meanwhile, has more than carved out her own acclaimed lane as a writer, director, and actor, with “The Invite” marking another step in a filmmaking career that clearly has plenty of road ahead. Not a bad outcome for someone who once thought the pod meant she was space-bound. Watch the full podcast conversation below.
