How Donald Sutherland Won and Lost His First Film Role All at Once

(up-tempo music)

I would like to tell you

about my first audition

for a film.

This is,

1962.

(car horn beeping)

It was a film called 4 O'Clock in the Morning.

(beeping alarm clock)

I read the script, and I thought I had done

very well...

and when I came back home, my wife said How did it go?

and I am very superstitious,

and I said I think it was maybe OK,

but I really though it was good.

I waited the next morning for my agent to call.

I sat there, and then the phone rang.

(phone ringing)

And it was not my agent,

it was the producer,

the writer, and the director,

and I said Hello, and I wondered for a second

how they were able to, all three of them

be on the telephone,

and then the writer started saying that

he was so excited by the audition,

that it had thrilled him,

and that it had, inspired him,

and that he had had gone away and

re-written pieces of the script

just because of the work I had done,

and the director said it was the most -

it was astonishing because you created for us,

exactly the heart and soul of the film,

and then the producer said, and we're calling you,

the three of us this morning,

to explain to you why we're not casting you.

(sighs)

I don't know the difference between a

stroke and a heart attack but,

whatever it is, I had it.

I stopped,

and I said Okay, and then he said,

but then he said but let us explain.

He said we've always

thought of this as being a kind of,

guy next door sort of film

and we all met and agreed,

that you don't look like you've ever

lived next door to anybody.

(phone slams down)

That was the first audition.

That kind of sums up

how things went.