getty Madonna David Harbour
When it comes to auditions, one in particular sticks out for actor David Harbour.
While visiting Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Wednesday to promote his new film Violent Night, the Stranger Things actor recalled one of the most unforgettable audition experiences of his life: for 2011’s W.E., directed by Madonna.
“It was a crazy thing,” the 47-year-old actor told host Jimmy Kimmel. “It was a real cloak-and-dagger type of experience.”
“I got a call from a casting director that I knew very well saying they’re putting together a top-secret movie read through, but you just have to show up at the St. Regis and go in this room, and all will be revealed,” he recalled. “And I was like, ‘This is really weird and creepy.’ “
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Wondering why he’d been asked to attend the audition, the casting director was candid. He was told that the unnamed director had seen him in the 2008 film Revolutionary Road: “You have a sex scene in it, and they thought you were sexy.”
Harbour was incredibly curious leading up to the audition. “And so all weekend, I was literally thinking about Ridley Scott and Martin Scorsese,” Harbour shared with Kimmel, 55, with a chuckle.
“I show up at the St. Regis, and I get in the room, and there’s a bunch of other New York actors there, and in walks Madonna, who’s directing this movie. The first thing that flooded over me, I was like, ‘Wow, Madonna thinks I’m sexy,’ ” he remembered.
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The Black Widow actor revealed that the audition was a “truly harrowing, exciting experience” because he had been crushing on the singer since seeing her “Open Your Heart” music video back in 1986 when he was 11. “So there I am, in this boardroom of the St. Regis, and it all comes flooding back,” he told Kimmel.
In addition to Harbour, the film starred Abbie Cornish, Andrea Riseborough, and James D’Arcy. It didn’t do well at the box office. “The film was not a terrific movie,” Harbour admitted.
But the experience led to “one of the coolest things I’ve ever done” — attend Madonna’s birthday party.
“She came in, and she was in like this gorgeous, emerald dress. And then the party started, and she put on sweatpants, and they just cranked Madonna music,” he recalled. “I danced with Madonna to Madonna music. On my headstone, that is it!”
