Playing Matilda Jeffries opposite her husbandBen StillerinZoolander, wasn’t always the plan forChristine Taylor.
TheFriendsgivingactress, 51, revealed onThe Drew Barrymore ShowTuesday that she actually had her eye on a different movie with Stiller, before being cast in 2001’sZoolander.
“My joke with that movie was we had just got married and he was reading lots of actors for the part [of Matilda Jeffries] and I had auditioned forMeet the Parents… and I didn’t get the part,” Taylor said.
Taylor said she was originally “not going to audition” for theZoolanderrole because she had been dating Stiller at the time, but fate had other plans.
“It would be a job I would probably audition for, but I don’t want to put us through the discomfort of, ‘what if they don’t want to cast me in it? What if?’,” Taylor explained to hostDrew Barrymore.
So, she said she “sort of took myself out of it” and the role had been offered instead to other popular actresses at the time, likeSarah Jessica Parker. But Taylor said they either “couldn’t do it or for whatever reason [didn’t],” which opened the door for her to come in.
“I always joke that I’m fourth choice and cheap, which is why I cast in it,” Taylor teased.
The Drew Barrymore Show/Ash Bean
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She added that she’s been presently surprised at the positive reactions to the film since its release.
“It’s the best,” Taylor said. “People have grown to love it more and more with every decade.”
Melinda Sue Gordon/Paramount/Nvp/Red Hour/Village R’Show/Kobal/Shutterstock
Stiller recentlyreprised his iconic role in the movie in a commercialforPepsi Zero SugarforSuper Bowl2023.
Speaking with PEOPLE about the ad, Stiller detailed that getting to return to hisZoolandercharacter once again, even if only for a brief moment, is something that is “always fun.”
“Anytime I have a chance to go back to doing it, it’s feeling this reconnection,” he said. “[I have] such good memories over the years of working on the movies, going all the way back to when we first did the character.”
“It’s been a long history with him, so it’s great that people still want to see Derek in their lives,” he added. “I think he represents something for people in terms of a sweet vapidity that’s very endearing.”
source: people.com
