The one role Stanley Tucci will never reprise: “I tried to get out of playing the role”
Some stars just have an ease about them that ensures the paying audience almost instantly warms to them. Stanley Tucci is one such actor.
He has taken on many roles in his career, but all of them play out with a comfort that stands him out against the rest of the ensemble. Whether the role is humorous or more serious, the actor brings a likability that is difficult to notice, just unstoppable to avoid.
It means he is often recast when movies are given a sequel. In the upcoming sequel to The Devil Wears Prada, Tucci has once again been drafted in as the sassy stylist Nigel. Audiences couldn’t imagine a sequel without him, and that is the power he has in his performances. But not all roles have spoken to the actor is neatly as Nigel did.
In an interview, Stanley Tucci, the beloved actor famed for his roles in Road to Perdition, The Devil Wears Prada, The Hunger Games, and more revealed the one film role he would never take on again.
“I would not play George Harvey again in The Lovely Bones, which was horrible,” Tucci said during an interview with ET. Although the role earned him nominations for an Oscar, a SAG award, a BAFTA, and a Golden Globe, the actor revealed that his creepy character put him off. “It’s a wonderful movie, but it was a tough experience,” he explained. “Simply because of the role.”
In the movie adaption of the Alice Sebold book of the same name, Tucci portrays a deranged serial killer who rapes and murders at least seven girls. The actor admitted that he had been so horrified by the character that he tried to back out of the role early on in the project. He also became concerned about why the director, Peter Jackson, chose him for such a brutal role.
“I asked Peter Jackson why he cast me in that role. I tried to get out of playing the role, which is crazy because I needed a job,” said Stanley. “But I was like, ‘Why do you want me?’ And he said, ‘Because you’re funny.’ And I thought, ‘OK.’ But I understand what he was saying.”
Being funny isn’t a normal requisite for such a harrowing role, but as Tucci explained, Jackson cast him knowing that, as a good-humoured person, he wouldn’t be “overly dramatic about it.”
“That I would throw it away a bit,” Tucci added. “Which is what you have to do when you’re playing somebody who’s that awful, right? You can’t play into it. Then, you know, it’s over,” he added. “Like, the movie’s over. You just have to play against it.” It was a tough role for Tucci, but he gave more than a good account of himself.
Tucci delivered the performance with aplomb, but while there are no plans for any kind of sequel, there’s a good chance that if such a thing did occur, Tucci wouldn’t be interested in putting himself through the turmoil again.
