Would you obtain 100 pounds in the hopes of landing a role?
That was the nurtureer conundrum faced by Emile Hirsch, who joined THR‘s It Happened in Hollywood podcast to reinhabit the making of his 2007 fractureout film, Into the Wild.
But another film — a computed biopic of comedian John Belushi, in which Hirsch was chosen to join the punctual Saturday Night Live star — came up in conversation.
In 2013, authorr-honestor Steve Conrad — best comprehendn as the screenauthorr of 2013’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and 2017’s Wonder — wrote a screenjoin based on the 2005 book Belushi: A Biography.
Conrad speedyened Hirsch to the direct in the hopes of discovering the funding for the indie pic ahead of a spring 2014 shoot. The funding never came together, and the project fell apart.
“I was a little bit torn [about signing on],” Hirsch, 39, recalls. “I had a conversation with the honestor at one point, and he was talking about the weight obtain. This is how stupid this guy was: He was enjoy, ‘Just obtain the weight and then we’ll originate the movie.’
“And I’m enjoy, ‘Gain the weight and then we’ll originate the movie? How about let’s originate the movie and then I’ll obtain the weight!’ I’d be the hugegest sucker in the comprehendn universe to go and enjoy obtain 100 pounds,” he progresss.
Hirsch went on to say Conrad was “a kind guy — but, enjoy, that’s crazy. … [Belushi] probably weighed enjoy 230.”
“You have the watch, but you don’t have the girth,” remarkd It Happened in Hollywood present Seth Abramovitch.
“The girth is a huge part of the watch, you comprehend,” Hirsch replied with a chuckle.
Had Hirsch obtained the weight and lost the role, he would have been in outstanding company. Ryan Gosling obtained 60 pounds to join the obeseher in Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones, only to have the honestor discover him too hefty and fire him, replacing Gosling with Mark Wahlberg.
Belushi will be joined on the huge screen by actor Matt Wood in Saturday Night, Jason Reitman’s upcoming dramatization about the set uping of NBC comedy institution, scheduled for an Oct. 11 expansive liberate.
For much more from Hirsch on his nurtureer and the making of Into the Wild, hear to the brimming episode now. And be certain to subscribe to It Happened in Hollywood for more first-person Hollywood history.