17 Times Actors Were So Desperate For A Role, They Begged, Bargained, And Pleaded
by Kristen Harris · BuzzFeedMost of us probably wouldn't beg a company's hiring manager for a job (no matter how badly we wanted it). However, in the acting world, some performers shamelessly plead to be part of a project they're passionate about.
Here are 17 actors who begged and pleaded for roles (and if they were successful):
1. When Margaret Qualley heard there was a sequel for her favorite movie, Happy Gilmore, in the works, she "emailed [her] agents right away," saying, "Anything it takes. No part is too small. Please! I got to be a part of this. I beg of you, please, whatever it takes."
Producer/lead actor Adam Sandler texted her husband, Jack Antonoff, "Jacko. It's Sandler. Does your wife golf at all?"
Jack replied, "Yeah she's actually good!"
In 2024, Margaret told The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, "What a good husband. I can’t golf. He lied for the sake of the family…Never golfed a day in my life. I’m terrible, actually.”
She has "a tiny part" in the upcoming Happy Gilmore 2.
"It was the best thing that ever happened to me. It's a tiny part. I'm essentially deep background, but I can die happy now," she said.
2. In 2019, Racquel Palmer put up a billboard asking Tyler Perry to cast her in one of his projects.
My #LeapOfFaith. I'm just a mother wanting to show my children that I went for it all, that I chased my dreams. So one day, they'll be able to do the same. pic.twitter.com/If2U3RaFkT
— Racquel Palmer (@RacquelPalmer_) May 7, 2019
Raquel Palmer / Via x.com
Sharing a picture of her billboard on Instagram, Tyler said, "Auhhh.... soooooo...... here’s the deal. This is not the way to get my attention if you’re looking for a role in one of my shows. Please DON’T DO THIS, SAVE YOUR MONEY!! This is the third time that someone has done this. PLEASE STOP! To audition is FREE!! I’m sure you can use that money for a better purpose.
I love that you want to work with me, and I love that you invest in yourself. But when you do things like this it puts my team on high alert and makes me look at you sideways. I know the message that you want to send is a positive one, but this comes across as the opposite.
Again, the best way to work for me is to AUDITION and it’s FREE! We post breakdowns all the time for actors. JUST COME AND AUDITION.
And by the way, you were great in THE NIGHT OF! It was my favorite show a couple years ago. I ALREADY SAW YOU!! So just audition and keep your money!! Again, I appreciate your effort, but that’s not the way to work for me.
God bless you dreamer. I have no doubt you will make it one day!!"
In 2021, she began playing Blue on All the Queen's Men, which Tyler wrote and executive produced.
Racquel told TMZ, "We're in Tyler Perry Studios, so there's many interactions with him as far as directing, but we've never spoke of the billboard. It's just actor and director relationship. It's just like [it] never happened. The one thing that I did learn is that I want to be known for my talent, not my tactics. I don't think everybody even understands. Like, the whole point about the billboard was just because I wanted to show my kids that I wasn't going to give up on my dream. I was at a point where I wanted to. But I didn't want them to see me give up. And I was just going for my last hurrah, so you know, even if it didn't work out, they could say, 'Mom, we went for it.'"
3. When Sadie Sink auditioned for the role of Max Mayfield in Stranger Things at age 14, the casting directors worried she was too "old." In 2022, she told Fashion, "I just begged and pleaded with them to give me more material so I could show them something fresh."
To her, the part just felt "right."
So, the team relented, bringing her back for a chemistry read with Caleb McLaughlin and Gaten Matarazzo.
She booked the role the day after her second chance.
4. Timothée Chalamet auditioned to play Nic Sheff in Beautiful Boy "three or four times before [he] read with Steve Carell, and it was a big process to get into." In 2018, he told TNP, "The first meeting with [director Felix van Groeningen], I basically got on my knees and was like please, please, please let me do this. Like, literally."
He continued, "I can gratefully say, thank God I didn't have any direct experience with anything in this movie. But growing up in New York, in the heart of Hell's Kitchen, certainly I've seen people not only experimenting with this stuff, but really caught in the throes of it too.
That's where I felt a need and an urgency to do it. Addiction knows no race, class, gender. This is a complex disease, similar to depression. It can affect everyone."
He was very grateful for the part because "Felix gave [him] this role when there were actors coming in that had names or careers or whatever and [he] didn't have nothing."
5. Brendan Fraser "didn't ask" producer Bob Ducsay to put him in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, he "begged."
In 2008, he told Rotten Tomatoes, "We were in Shanghai, shooting nights and doing the chase sequence. Bob Ducsay gets off the phone. Bob produced the other two pictures. He's got this big old smile on his face. 'What have you got to be so happy about?' He said, 'We just got the green light to do Joe from Paramount.' 'Hey, congratulations, that's great, good for you. Can I be in it? Please? I'll wash your dog. I had a G.I. Joe. He dangled from his parachute strings in a tree one winter.'"
He had a cameo.
He said, "Now, let's just get the record straight. I am not Gung-Ho. I am not a refugee from the Village People. All due respect, I'm not that character. I made a personal choice when I arrived and kind of ripped it off and decided I'd be some sort of hybrid of a great-great-grandson of Rick O'Connell, so that's all I'm telling you — which is about everything because it was a cameo."
6. Sensing how important Crazy Rich Asians was going to be, Ken Jeong knew he wanted to be part of it. So, he told director Jon Chu, "Look, whether I'm in the movie or not, this is literally the most important Asian American movie since The Joy Luck Club. I will do whatever you want me to do."
In 2018, he told Profile, BuzzFeed News' Facebook Watch show, "Money talks. So when you are doing big business and we're doing something like Crazy Rich Asians that gets a worldwide box-office gross for $230 million, then everybody will want to get in that game... That's very rare in this business, and that's happening with more frequency since Crazy Rich Asians came out."
He booked the role of Goh Wye Mun.
7. In 2024, David Krumholtz told Entertainment Weekly, "I only met [Fantastic Four director Matt Shakman] on the strength of a Twitter post or an Instagram post that I then took down two hours after I posted it. I was embarrassed. My post said, ‘I just want to be in the conversation.’ And it was a picture of the Thing, and Matt saw it somehow. And I had a meeting with him and we discussed it. And I've never been so bold in a meeting before, just begging for the role, just straight up selling the shit out of it, the idea of how committed and passionate I was for it."
He also said, "It's been a big, sort of unabashedly craven goal of mine to be part of the MCU in some way."
However, David's pitch was unsuccessful, and the role of Ben Grimm/The Thing went to Ebon Moss-Bachrach.
David said, "I think Ebon Moss-Bachrach is a really great choice. It makes way more sense in some ways.”
8. Scarlett Johansson has "been trying to get into this [Jurassic Park] franchise in any possible way for over 10 years." In 2024, she told ComicBook, "I'm like, 'I'll die in the first five minutes! I can get eaten by whatever! I'll do the craft service!' I'll do anything for it."
She also said, "I'm an enormous Jurassic Park fan. It's one of the first films I remember seeing in the theater. I remember seeing it so vividly. It was like life-changing. It was mind-blowing."
In 2024, she was cast as Zora Bennett in the upcoming Jurassic World Rebirth.
She told ComicBook, "I'm such an enormous fan of the franchise and huge nerd for it. I'm just like, I can't even, I'm pinching myself...The fact that it's happened in this way at this time just is actually unbelievable. I can't believe it."
9. When Chris Evans was in talks to play Ransom Drysdale in Knives Out, he didn't "let [writer/director Rian Johnson] speak" during their first meeting. In a "Building the Cast" featurette for the film's DVD release, he said, "I think I was just kind of babbling the entire time about what I wanted to do with the role and what I thought I could bring and please cast me."
"Basically, it was just kind of me just pitching him. Just begging," he said.
He, of course, booked the role.
10. Helen Mirren "didn't ask" Vin Diesel to put her in the Fast & Furious franchise, she "begged!" In 2022, she told The Hollywood Reporter, "I think I was at some function, and he was there, and I got introduced to him. And I was shameless: 'Oh God, I’d just love to be in one of your movies! Please let me be in it.'"
She continued, "And then Vin, with that beautiful, deep voice of his, said, 'I’ll see what I can do.'"
She was cast as Magdalene "Queenie" Ellmanson-Shaw in The Fate of the Furious.
Helen said, "And he did it for me. He found this great little role for me, which was perfect. I’d just never done anything like that before — one of those big, big movies. And, in my vanity, I just loved driving and really wanted to do my own driving in a fast car."
11. In 2023, Melissa McCarthy told People that when she heard Rob Marshall was doing a live-action The Little Mermaid, she "threw [her]self in front of [his] car and begged him." She said, "I didn't really, but I did beg him to talk to me. That part's true."
"I've spent more time with Little Mermaid than probably any other movie, which I didn't really think about until Rob's like, 'Did you see this a few times?' I'm like, 'Well, [now that] you ask me, I've seen it a weird amount of times. Which could have frightened him. Luckily, it didn't," she said.
She "loved [Ursula] so much."
"She's such a broad, I just wanted to have a drink with her," Melissa said.
12. At the 2023 Rebel Moon Part One: A Child Of Fire premiere, Charlie Hunnam told the PA news agency, "I wasn't reading the script for Kai. I was reading the script for another character, and immediately, when Kai showed up, I was like, 'Forget that other geezer. I'm playing Kai.' And so I wasn't sure if it was already cast or if Zack [Snyder] would be up for it...I begged for it, actually."
"You know he’s a very interesting character Kai, you never really know what he’s about, my sense is he’s very sincere about everything," he added.
He got to play Kai.
13. Ryan Reynolds was initially interested in playing the titular role in Green Lantern because of the director, but the more he learned about the role, the more he wanted it. In 2011, he told Slash Film, "I was really more interested in Martin Campbell just because I loved Casino Royale, and I had loved some of his other films as well. I had three meetings with him total. At first, they were kind of trying to convince me and then by the end, I was begging them for the role."
He continued, "They took me up to the art department, and I met [production designer] Grant Major, [costume designer] Ngila Dickson, and [cinematographer] Dion Beebe was there. I saw the artwork, and that was it. Seeing that world and seeing the possibility there. You don't want to put the cart in front of the horse, but if this were to work, you do another movie. Barring that, you do another one after that. Then, you can see this going well beyond Hal Jordan and into the other Green Lanterns. You know, the fall of Hal and dispensing with him and then bringing on Guy Gardner, Kyle Rayner, or any of those guys."
He, of course, played Hal Jordan/Green Lantern.
14. Coming "from the world of beauty pageants and modeling," Halle Berry had to beg to be taken seriously as an actor — starting with the role of Vivian in Jungle Fever.
In 2016, she told W Magazine, "Spike Lee wanted me to read for the part of his wife and I read that part fine enough, but then I said to Spike “You know I really am eyeing this crack ho role, can you please let me audition for that?” And he said, “no, no I don’t see you as the crack ho.” I said, “I am the crack ho. Really deep down I’m the crack ho!” And he was like, “No, I don’t see it.” And I said, “Let me go in the bathroom, wash all this makeup off; you will see eyeing the crack ho.” So, he let me do that and I came back out and I got to read the crack ho."
She, of course, booked the role.
She continued, "I got the part of the of the crack ho. And it was an amazing way to start my career, playing a crack ho be directed by Spike Lee. It was major for me."
15. No one thought Nicole Kidman "could do" Suzanne Stone-Maretto in To Die For. However, as she told Variety in 2016, "I called Gus [Van Sant, the director] and I said, ‘Please, give me the chance, I beg you,’ because the writing was so strong.”
She got the part.
16. In 2017, Gwendoline Christie told The Times, "When I saw [creator/writer/director Jane Champion] was doing Top of the Lake, I wrote her a letter — I knew I had to be in it. I can’t tell you what I said, but I kept it for 18 months before posting it."
She continued, "I tried to keep it short, didn’t want her to die of boredom reading it, then she emailed me back about four months after I sent it."
The role of Miranda Hilmarson was written for Gwendoline in Top of the Lake: China Girl.
She said, "We spoke on the phone for hours, and she told me she would create a lead part for me. I asked for a challenge and Miranda is a challenge. She is constantly destabilised, she fails at everything, she is on the outside and still continues to be on the outside. This is a new story for me to tell."