The huge movie Paul Rudd missed out on: “I couldn’t have been more wrong”
It’s always interesting to think about the ‘what-ifs’ in culture. What if certain names had lived longer? What if certain films had ended differently? But for some actors, the what-ifs surrounding the roles they missed out on can get pretty painful. For Paul Rudd, it involves one of the biggest movies ever made.
Realistically, it’s not that Rudd ever needed another accolade on his list. Throughout his lengthy and dynamic career, he’s been involved in some huge projects. He’s a frequent collaborator with director Judd Apatow as they established themselves as the kings of modern comedy thanks to films like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up and Anchorman. Elsewhere, he’s dealt in big-budget blockbusters as he joined the Marvel cinematic universe. But he’s also managed to be involved in some cult classics that remain beloved by cinephiles, like Baz Luhrmann’s take on Romeo and Juliet or the ultimate 1990s chick flick Clueless.
Rudd is an everyman, spanning just about every possible genre of film an actor could be in. “He always had this quality where you couldn’t really peg him down,” Bill Hader said about the actor to GQ, “He could do anything, and effortlessly.”
However, one casting team wasn’t fully sold on that idea, and he was turned down for a role in a major film. In what must remain as a lingering ‘what if’, leaving him to consider what journey his career might have taken if he’d landed the part, Rudd almost secured a role in The Shawshank Redemption.
“I read for it,” Rudd told Dax Shephard on his podcast Armchair Expert, “For the Gil Bellows part.” The actor was considered for the role of Tommy Williams, the youngest convict of the cast who was imprisoned for burglary. It’s a deeply emotive role amidst a heavy drama film based on a novel by Steven King.
The movie is undoubtedly one of the biggest flicks of modern times. Led by powerful performances from Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, the film picked up seven Oscar nominations, amongst several other accolades. Mostly, though, it was a box office smash that earned an estimated $73million. So yeah, it was a huge role for Rudd to miss out on.
However, he’d be the first to admit that, despite priding himself on his range, he wasn’t right for the role. “By the way, [I] couldn’t have been more wrong,” he said, fully knowing that he couldn’t have pulled off the character. But when the casting process first began, he did have hope. “It was right when I was starting off, I want to say,” he continued, “I read the script, and I was like, ‘this is really, really good. This is Stephen King?!’”
But beyond Rudd, The Shawshank Redemption struggled to cast most of their roles. As such a rich film, full of emotive scenes and dramatic moments, finding the right performers was vital. For the main character of Andy Dufresne, big names like Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood, Tom Cruise and Gene Hackman were all considered. For the role Rudd went out for, it was originally offered to Brad Pitt. But in the end, it was Gil Bellows who played Tommy Williams in his first-ever feature.
So, while Rudd missed out, he still went on to have a wildly successful career, and the movie helped launch an unknown star into the spotlight instead.
