John Cleese Interviewed #
The Onion’s A.V. Club has a good interview with the inimitable John Cleese of Monty Python fame.
AVC: You turned down the role that eventually went to Bruce Willis in The Bonfire Of The Vanities.
JC: Oh my God, yes, you’re absolutely right. I did.
NR: Beyond common sense and good judgment, what was the thinking behind that?
JC: I liked Brian De Palma’s thrillers. I thought they were fantastic. But I’d never seen any sign of comedy in them. You might love those Bourne movies, but you wouldn’t necessarily want to run off and do a comedy with their director. So I thought that was a bit risky. So I did turn that down. How’d you know that?
AVC: There’s a website called notstarring.com where they list roles actors have passed on.
PS: That website: very cool stuff.
PPS: The second half drags a little. If you only read one page of this, be sure it’s the first.