Jake Gyllenhaal: Bafta award-winner; Oscar-nominated actor; impressively versatile – and worst actor ever, according to Peter Jackson.
Gyllenhall was in the reckoning to play Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, the actor revealed in an amusing interview with Jimmy Fallon.
But the director was less than impressed with the Nightcrawler actor’s audition. After receiving a call from excitable agents that were adamant that Jake was tailor-made to be a hobbit – how complimentary that opinion is is up for debate – he turned up to the casting session feeling pretty confident.
It didn’t really go to plan, however. After being seemingly the only actor at the audition who didn’t read the lines in an English accent, Jackson scathingly branded him the “worst actor I have ever seen”. Even if that was a slightly exaggerated recollection from Gyllenhaal, he said that the New Zealander also recommended he immediately fire all his agents as well. Ouch.
Luckily, Gyllenhaal defied the odds and proved that he was, in fact, quite a good actor. Elijah Wood went on to get the nod as Frodo, and in doing so became one of the most meme-able characters of all time. All’s well that ends well.
