Seth Rogen Auditioned for 'Gigli,' Says the Tape Would End His Career

Audtioning sucks, man. It’s fun when it works. Having a great audition, where you may get a few laughs, or even gasps (gasps, bro, I’m going for gasps), feels wonderful. You walk out of there with your head held high and a hope that you got the part (because you don’t know you look like the director’s ex-husband’s brother-in-law). When an audition goes poorly, it feels like it may never end. And you can tell, but you have to stew in it, because the last thing you want to do is ask for a reset. While plenty of actors and actresses have been able to avoid auditions thanks to who their parents are, plenty of your favorites have, and still do, audition.

On a recent trip to Jimmy Kimmel: Live, Seth Rogen recalled an audition so horrendous, he thinks it could ruin his career if it resurfaced. Rogen has been connected since the early days of his career, impressing Judd Apatow during his audition and subsequent work on Freaks & Geeks. Connections or not, Rogen was not the most traditional-looking or acting leading man. Apatow made him a leading man, and the industry kind of changed (or at least pivoted) around him. Still, before the days of Knocked Up, Rogen was auditioning for smaller roles. His audition for Dwight in The Office is out there, but not his tape for Gigli.

“It has been a long time,” Rogen told Jimmy. “And thank God it was mostly physical VHS tapes and stuff like that that was being used when I was auditioning for things, because the things I auditioned for, in retrospect, if they were out there in the world, they would end my career very, very fast, I believe.” When pressed for an example, Rogen explains that he auditioned for a role in Gigli, as a character with cognitive disabilities, a term that Rogen points out was not used at the time. “Truthfully, if that tape was out [in] the world today, this would be the last interview you ever saw me do. Other than, like, my apology tour. Please, if you have it, burn it. Please sell it to me. I will buy it.”

The Studio actor went on to explain just how poorly the material he was auditioning with was written. “I don’t think the script was written in what, by today’s standards, would be the most sensitive portrayal of a boy with a cognitive disability. […] I don’t think I wore a helmet into the audition itself, but it was at play,” Rogen noted, saying he wanted to impress the director, Martin Brest. “And I’m tempted to do an impression of what I did, but I can’t even do it. I can’t. That’s how bad it was. It’s so bad. I dare not even portray what I did in this audition. Because I went for it. I saw myself at the Oscars.”

Jimmy can barely keep it together during Seth’s story, which is funny in and of itself. I also love how good of a dude Seth Rogen is. He takes such care telling the story, trying to avoid being offensive while telling a story about something offensive he did. Whereas others would maybe use it as an excuse to say whatever thing they think hasn’t aged well. I doubt the tape will ever make it into the light of day, but I do think it may not have the effect on Seth’s career that he may think. But then again, he does say it’s pretty bad…