10 Excuses Actors Used For Blowing Major Movie Auditions

The Role

Everybody's favourite archaeology professor-turned-adventurer Indiana Jones, who of course went on to become one of the most statuesque screen icons of all time, courtesy of Harrison Ford (who is currently shooting a fifth entry into the series).

The Audition

Harry Hamlin, who appeared in hit legal drama series LA Law throughout the '80s, took part in a most unorthodox audition for director Steven Spielberg, and one which he colossally screwed up.

According to Hamlin, he was brought in to audition alongside Stephanie Zimbalist, who was up for the part of Marion Ravenwood, as eventually went to Karen Allen. And so began a deeply strange audition where Spielberg asked the pair to, of all things, bake a cake:

"When I got there, Steven came down... He said, 'Harry, Stephanie, I'm so sorry, but George [Lucas]' plane is going to be late. He's flying down from San Francisco and it's going to be at least 45 minutes until he gets here.'"

The filmmaker then asked the pair to bake a chocolate cake using the production office's kitchen, without instructions no less, before Spielberg exited the room and left the pair to figure it out for 40 minutes.

Hamlin evidently didn't realise that this peculiar task was part of the audition itself, or that he was actually being secretly recorded by Spielberg and Lucas. And so, Hamlin freely sounded off on the director in a way that he believes cost him the job:

"During that time, because Amy Irving [who Spielberg later married] had been a good friend of mine, I was talking about how Amy was calling her friend group in LA and saying that this guy, this director guy was stalking her in New York and how she was kind of getting annoyed because this guy, Steven Spielberg, was showing up at the stage door every night with flowers... It never occurred to me that we were actually in the audition while we were making the cake."

"I'd been riffing on how annoying Steven Spielberg was to my friend Amy... So hey, guess what? I didn't get the part and I've never worked with Steven Spielberg, and I grant you that I never will work with Steven Spielberg and I never learned how to make a cake."

At least he seems to have a sense of humour about it, right? And while Hamlin never became a Harrison Ford-tier mega-star, he has enjoyed a fruitful TV career for the last four decades. Not bad.