The Audition That Changed Everything For These Actors

Showbiz is fickle. Actors can try for years to land a decent role, and even when they do, it's no guarantee of success. Those who do make it big often say the same thing: it just takes being in the right place at the right time. These actors all conquered Hollywood thanks to landing a great—and widely acclaimed—role. It seems hard to imagine, but for these performers, stardom came down to a single make-or-break audition that ended with them scoring their breakout parts.

X-Men introduced the world to Hugh Jackman, and the actor has relished megastardom ever since. Prior to 2000, Jackman had for the most part confined his work to the Australian stage, performing in musicals like Oklahoma! and Sunset Blvd. A few parts in films and on television hadn't done much to advance his career progress. That all changed when a casting director recommended him for a screen test in an upcoming superhero film. Jackman's wife told him not to take the part, though he ignored her. (She would later admit he'd done the right thing.)

To prepare for the part of Wolverine, Jackman took cold showers, gained muscle weight and studied martial arts. He also studied "tough guy" performances like Clint Eastwood's in Dirty Harry. Director Bryan Singer loved Jackman's audition, but Fox studio executives weren't convinced, and wanted a bigger name. Singer initially cast Dougray Scott in the part. However, when Scott had to decline the role due to scheduling conflicts, Singer again turned to Jackman, inviting him back for a screen test opposite actress Anna Paquin. This time, he won the role, and stardom beckoned just around the corner.

It's hard to imagine now, but Harrison Ford had a difficult time breaking into motion pictures. The actor first started working on stage in his native state of Wisconsin before moving to Hollywood. When he arrived, he managed to secure small roles on television shows and a few bit parts in films, though he continued to struggle financially. Ford would spend 10 years trying to start a film career with little luck. To supplement his income, he worked as a stagehand and carpenter.

While working as a carpenter, Ford caught the attention of casting director Fred Roos, who recommended him for a small role in a new film by up-and-coming director George Lucas. Ford won the part in American Graffiti, which went on to become a huge critical and commercial success. Still, he struggled to find roles, and was still supplementing his income with non-acting work several years later, when Lucas started casting a sci-fi adventure he called Star Wars. An actor scheduled to audition for the role of space smuggler Han Solo failed to show up, and Lucas contacted Ford to come in and read the role while actresses screen tested for the female lead. Lucas so enjoyed Ford's performance that he cast him in the movie—thus finally launching him as one of the biggest stars in the world.

Long before comics adaptations turned into a billion-dollar business, producers Ilya and Alexander Salkind optioned the rights to the most famous superhero of all: Superman. After hiring director Richard Donner to helm the production, the creative team realized they faced an enormous problem. Who could possibly play Superman?

Donner and the Salkinds auditioned scores of actors, from established stars like James Caan and Paul Newman to an unknown bodybuilder named Arnold Schwarzenegger, but couldn't find their Superman. Casting director Lynn Stalmaster suggested a young actor named Christopher Reeve, who'd studied drama at the esteemed Juilliard school and had a number of stage credits to his name, including a play with Katherine Hepburn.

Donner and the Salkinds at first resisted even considering Reeve for the part, deeming him too thin. Still, at the insistence of Stalmaster, Donner allowed Reeve to screen test for the part. The director would later recall seeing Reeve, dressed in the full Superman costume, jump onto the screen for the first time, and knowing he'd found his Superman. Reeve would go on to play the role in three subsequent sequels, becoming a cultural icon along the way.

The Harry Potter book series was already a pop culture phenomenon by the time Warner Bros. won the rights to produce film adaptations, signing Chris Columbus to direct the first movie. The film, and indeed the entire franchise, would face a number of logistical problems. Set a year apart, the Harry Potter series comprised at least seven films which would need to be filmed in rapid succession to avoid the need to recast the child actors. Moreover, J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, maintained a great deal of control over the movie adaptations of her work, and wanted an all-British cast.

An 11-year-old actor named Daniel Radcliffe attracted the attention of producer David Heyman. Radcliffe had acted in a handful of British television productions before scoring his audition for the Harry Potter films, and had to audition several times over a period of eight months before being called in to perform his final screen test. He performed scenes from several of the novels opposite Columbus, and upon reviewing the tapes, Columbus thought Radcliffe ideal for the role of Harry. J.K. Rowling gave her approval, and just like that, Radcliffe had the weight of a blockbuster franchise on his shoulders.

TV audiences got their first good look at Tom Hanks during his 1980-'82 run opposite Peter Scolari on the ABC sitcom Bosom Buddies, but the show was never a huge ratings success, and he struggled to find work after it was canceled. In fact, as he recalled during this Conan appearance, Hanks was unemployed for roughly a year—a time during which he made the fateful acquaintance of some of the cast and crew of Happy Days.

Hanks' friendship with Happy Days star Ron Howard paid professional dividends when Howard, branching out into full-time feature directing, approached Hanks about starring in the 1984 mermaid rom-com Splash. Howard and his production partner Brian Grazer had struggled to find a studio for the project, finally latching on at Disney's new Touchstone imprint with the promise that it'd reach screens faster—and cheaper—than a competing mermaid movie toplined by Warren Beatty.

Although Hanks wasn't the studio's first choice to star opposite Daryl Hannah in the movie, he eventually won them over—despite the fact that, as he joked in his Conan interview, he was still acting in sitcom mode and hadn't yet perfected the art of modulating his performance to suit less over-the-top material. All's well that ends well: Splash went on to make nearly $70 million in the U.S., jump-starting one of Hollywood's most distinguished film careers in the bargain.