The idea of auditioning for a movie role typically fills anyone who's not accustomed to the process with a strong sense of dread. As everyone already knows, public speaking is one of the most common human fears, and when you couple it with having to remember dialogue while convincingly pretending to be another person, the task becomes even more nerve-racking. However, that's only the first half of the apprehension surrounding auditions. The latter half comes from meeting an adorable Japanese woman that turns out to be a sadistic serial killer.
Wait, I apologize; that's the wrong audition.
The worst part about any audition is the rejection that follows. It's never easy to face rejection, but if you're forced to, you usually hope the person casting judgment will at least let you down easily. According to MovieWeb, David Duchovny credits Quentin Tarantino for providing him with the best rejection of his entire career.
In a new interview with Collider, done with Julia Louis-Dreyfus in promotion of their new Netflix movie You People, Duchovny says he auditioned for Reservoir Dogs. He then jokes that he was cast in Tim Roth's role only to find out at the premiere that he'd been replaced, suggesting he may have auditioned for Mr. Orange.
"I auditioned for Pulp Fiction, and it was… No, not Pulp Fiction. I auditioned for Reservoir Dogs. That was like in the late '80s… Yeah. I'm fantastic in it. They did this head replacement of Tim Roth on me. It really pissed me off. I didn't know. I went to the premiere, and I was like, 'Oh, Tim Roth's head is on mine.'"
Getting serious, Duchovny says that he did in fact audition, but he didn't get the job. But that doesn't mean it was a sour experience for the actor. Duchovny notes that Tarantino told him that he wasn't getting the part in perhaps the most polite way possible, and to this day, the X-Files star considers it to be the "best rejection" he ever had.
"So I auditioned for Quentin Tarantino, and this is not an imitation of Quentin, but he's a high-energy guy, and he goes, 'I really like what you do. I just don't know if I want you to do it in my movie.' It was the best rejection I ever got in my life."
