In news which has genuinely ruined my week, nay life, James Corden has confessed he once auditioned to play Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. For reasons which should be obvious to every human being on God’s green Earth, he did not score the role.
The walking L spilled the embarrassing tea on Joshua Horowitz‘s podcast Happy Sad Confused. If I had to choose how I was feeling after listening to the segment, I’d have to settle on “sad” with just a smidge of “confused”.
Horowitz asked Corden if it was true that one of his first auditions was for The Lord of the Rings. The noted egg white hater said this was correct.
“How did that go, James?” Horowitz queried.
“Not good,” Corden responded.
Credit where credit’s due, mans didn’t beat around the bush. I understand that the bar is extremely low, but at least he didn’t pretend it was a stunning moment in his acting career.
Corden then explained why the audition was such a flop.
“Everyone … every single person in London auditioned for The Lord of the Rings,” he said.
“And I auditioned for Samwise and I put myself on tape. This was before everyone had their own camera, so you’d go to this casting place [and] put yourself on tape.
“I was doing it, Josh. I was doing the accent and everything.”
The bloke then did a truly unnecessary Samwise Gamgee impression and exclaimed, “MR FRODO!!!” as if that eight-legged wench Shelob was about to attack.
He continued by saying he actually auditioned for the role with a few mates, and they all received two callbacks.
“And then none of us got called back after that,” he said.
I am not being facetious when I say you’d have to waterboard that information out of me. There is simply no way I’d willingly explain how I missed out on being cast as Frodo Baggins’ BFFL in The Lord of the Rings.
Once upon a time James Corden auditioned to be in LORD OF THE RINGS. It didn’t go well. @92ndStreetY
Watch the full #happysadconfused episode with James here. https://t.co/A2olZWL1rW pic.twitter.com/IyZcYQWujs
— Josh Horowitz (@joshuahorowitz) December 27, 2022
In saying that, I wonder if the trajectory of James Corden’s life would’ve changed if he scored the role of Samwise Gamgee instead of Sean Astin? Would he have allegedly yoinked one of Ricky Gervais‘ gags or participated in that truly dogshit Cinderella flash mob dressed as a giant rat? Would he not have plagued the world with Cats, a literal horror movie? I have many questions and zero answers.
All I know is Corden would’ve had a better shot at being cast as Sauron.
