Casting Surprise Quotes

I didn't tell anybody [had got a role at As Good As It Gets], because I was just going, "Well, that was the strangest audition..." And I just thought, "There's no way he gave me the job on the spot when there was a room full of other girls waiting to audition for it." But then I didn't hear anything for a couple of days, so I finally called my agents, and they're, like, "Oh, yeah, congratulations! We know Jim [L.Brooks] told you in the room that you got it."

Lots of people are astounded that I was in the first cast of 'Les Miserables.' Possibly because I look so incredibly youthful.

I had read the Animal House script, and by hook and crook, I finally got an audition. It was a great one. John Landis followed me out into the hallway afterward and said, "I've never done this before, but you've got the job. Now don't tell anyone!" I've never had a director do that. It was one of those Hollywood-dream-come-true stories. They saw me as a surfer or cowboy, not a preppie, but someone begged and borrowed me an audition, and I went in and got it.

The only reason I'm in 'Kingsman' is because Matthew enjoys playing with the unexpected. I'm not playing Harry Hart because I'm the butchest actor in Britain. I'm playing it because he said I'm the last person anyone would expect to see in that role!

When I found out about the audition, I knew that I was going in for 'From Dusk Till Dawn,' but I actually didn't know that I was going to be reading with Robert Rodriguez.

When I was cast as Gendry, I didn't have any of the physical attributes the part required. I was astounded that I got the role, to be honest.

I've always been a bit of a clown. But I think the seminal moment was when I was sixteen, and I auditioned for a little production of The 'Wizard of Oz,' and I was like, 'Clearly I'm Dorothy!' And they were like, 'We'd like you to play the Wicked Witch.'

It never would have occurred to me in 'Days of Future Past' to cast Peter Dinklage as Bolivar Trask, and yet as soon as he got onscreen I couldn't think of anyone else.

There have been many times when I've auditioned and I've actually won a different role in the same film.

I was just standing around and suddenly I was cast as an extra. I hated it because I was so shy.

I was particularly stunned by the casting of Cruise, who is no more my Vampire Lestat than Edward G. Robinson is Rhett Butler.

She said, and I'm not kidding, 'Is this a speaking role?' I wasn't quite sure how to answer that one.

It was fantastic returning to 'Being Human'. When I got cast in the role, at first I just thought it was for one episode, and the fans were really great about it, and it was really nice having that reaction.

Initially I thought: 'I would never get cast opposite Will Smith! No one would ever buy it with the age difference, our personalities.' I can't think of a couple that makes less sense in every way, shape and form.

I'm always looking for a way to surprise audiences. That's, I feel, my job as a director. I felt that Amy Adams playing a tough woman in 'The Fighter' was a surprise. People saw her as a princess.

I found it all very scary. This fairytale gets built around you - as if you've been walking through the streets and then Sydney Pollack sees you and goes, 'I'll put you in something!'

It was a little bit strange as an English woman cast in 'Rebellion.' I read up about the events and, honestly, I knew very little about it to begin with it. It wasn't something that they cover in English schools at all.

I guess I've done a couple of boys-y movies and on the whole you get bracketed into things you've just done, so it was an imaginative surprise from my Disney family to pull me out of the hat, as it were in Cinderella.