Bill Paxton’s greatest audition was for a 1991 movie he didn’t even get: “I read my ass off”
Bill Paxton is remembered as not just being one of the most versatile character actors of his time, but a genuinely nice guy who has only ever been rendered fondly by his co-stars.
He was always quite honest when discussing the shortcomings of his own career, but proved to be very generous in doleing out praise and admiration to those with whom he worked. While it was always nice to see him pop up, regardless of the size of his role, he started taking on more responsibilities towards the end of his career.
He was one of the first actors to take notice of the potential of HBO when he appeared on the drama series Big Love, and directed a slept-on masterpiece with the horror film Frailty, doing great work up until his death, as Nightcrawler was one of his very last roles.
His career started to get some heat in 1985 when he was cast as the wild older brother in the John Hughest coming-of-age classic Weird Science, in which he managed to steal the film from more well-known stars, like Anthony Michael Hall and Robert Downey Jr. It was only a few years later that Paxton proved that he could be a lead when James Cameron cast him in The Abyss, which at the time was one of the most expensive films ever made.
The actor was clearly in a position in which he could have blown up even more, so understandably, he tried seeking out bigger roles, admitting that he once auditioned for the role of Jim Morrison in The Doors, which ultimately ended up going to Val Kilmer.
“I read my ass off,” he told IMDB, “At the time, I was doing Navy Seals, and I flew up with short hair and a moustache to read for the lead. [Director Oliver Stone’s] response was, ‘Well, I just don’t see it’”.
Stone has a reputation for being rather blunt, but Paxton may have been an interesting choice for the role. In addition to being a decent singer in his own right, he had played more than a few wild, unorthodox roles that felt similar to Stone’s depiction of Morrison as being a crazed, unpredictable genius. The Doors is less of a traditional music biopic and more of a psychological drama about Morrison’s self-actualisation as both an artist and a mortal person.
However, it’s also hard to argue that Kilmer didn’t blow everyone away with one of the greatest performances of his career, famously learning to do all the singing himself, and utilising a method approach to get into Morrison’s psyche. While at the time the film was divisive, with many put off by the inaccuracies, The Doors has aged very well, especially when compared to a lot of the other, more generic music biopics that have been made in the last few years.
Working with Stone may not have been meant to be for Paxton, as he also had to drop out of starring in the director’s Vietnam film U Turn two weeks before it began production, only to be replaced by Sean Penn. Ironically, Paxton and Kilmer are actors with surprising similarities, despite having very different reputations; they were both true chameleons who took chances, and sadly, both died young, making it tragic to imagine what more they could have done.
