The Embarrassing Way Seth Rogen Bombed His ‘8 Mile’ Audition
Seth Rogen has been featured in many memorable television shows and movies. The comedian got his start in the 1999 show Freaks and Geeks and never looked back. Afterward, movies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up would further grow the actor’s profile. But there was one other acclaimed film Rogen once hoped to add to his filmography in Eminem’s 8 Mile.
Unfortunately, things didn’t go as Rogen planned. The star not only lost the role but lost it in an embarrassing way.
How Seth Rogen bombed his audition in ‘8 Mile’
Rogen called auditioning for Eminem’s 8 mile the weirdest audition he’d ever done. He was pursuing the role of Cheddar Bob at the time. But immediately, Rogen realized auditioning for 8 Mile was going to be different than most of his other acting auditions.
Insider noted that auditions usually feature casting people reading lines off-camera to an auditioning actor. However, Rogen’s casting director didn’t feel comfortable reading the lines in the 8 Mile script. So Rogen had to bring someone else with him to the audition to help him read.
“Which is f****** nuts,” Rogen wrote in his book Yearbook (via Insider.)
Eventually, Rogen brought his friend Jason Siegel, who also sought to play Cheddar Bob, to the audition with him. The two would later practice their lines at Rogen’s apartment before the big day. But the rehearsals didn’t matter, as neither of them was ready for the part.
“Auditioning is embarrassing in the best of times,” Rogen said. “Add the fact that one of my best friends is watching me do it and that we’re both reading for rappers from Detroit, which we could NOT have been less right for.”
Rogen and Siegel both couldn’t keep straight faces while reading lines from the script.
“I started laughing hysterically,” Rogen said. “And so did Jason. We literally couldn’t make it through the auditions. As soon as one of us started the scene, the other would lose it.”
Eventually, both actors decided the part just wasn’t right for them.
“It was so silly, we couldn’t finish,” Rogen wrote. “We just excused ourselves and saw ourselves out, tears streaming down our faces.”
Eminem found working with Seth Rogen in ‘Funny People’ to be more fun than working on his own movie
In 2009, Eminem had a cameo in Funny People. This was Eminem’s first appearance in a feature film since starring in the critically acclaimed 8 Mile. Before the film came out, Eminem briefly disclosed how doing Funny People was different than doing 8 Mile.
“I kind of do a little cameo in that,” Eminem said about Funny People according to Digital spy. “Which was fun by the way. And 8 Mile was not a fun movie to shoot.”
Eminem once spoke to Variety about how he was glad he did the film, but it just wasn’t what the artist expected.
“There was a lot of stuff that was not, um… It was a lot of work, and it being my first film I was not really expecting that,” Eminem said. “And it’s tough when you’ve got to be on someone else’s schedule, with the way that I work. But yeah, I’m certainly glad that I did it, and there were parts that were definitely fun, it was just a lot.”
Seth Rogen also auditioned for Dwight in ‘The Office’
8 Mile wasn’t the only high-profile role that Rogen auditioned for. The Pineapple Express actor also tried giving The Office a shot. IGN reported that Seth Rogen, as well as other prominent comedy actors, auditioned for various roles in the series. Of course, the character Rogen auditioned for, Dwight, would eventually go to Rainn Wilson.
