Did You Know Mickey Rooney Auditioned For Bad Santa? Here's What Happened
7When most people think of Mickey Rooney and classic Christmas movies, the first things that likely come to mind are his iconic portrayals of jolly old St. Nick. Starting with the iconic Rankin/Bass stop-motion gem Santa Claus Is Coming to Town in 1969 and running all the way to 2008 with A Miser Brothers' Christmas, he was the voice of Santa for many throughout the years. According to writers Glenn Ficara and John Requa, however, Rooney was being considered for a much raunchier holiday-themed role - as Billy Bob Thornton's dwarf assistant Marcus in the black comedy Bad Santa. During an interview with Collider's own Steve Weintraub for Rabbit Hole, Ficara and Requa told the story of Rooney's audition and their inspiration behind Marcus.
Executive produced by Ethan and Joel Coen with Terry Zwigoff directing, Bad Santa follows Willie T. Stokes (Thornton), a crusty, alcoholic, sex-addicted con man who poses as Santa at local stores in order to rob them with his crass little helper Marcus (Tony Cox). Willie is terrible with kids, though, and on one Christmas, his behavior finally catches the eye of a mall security guard (Bernie Mac). He's only able to find a possible way out through the help of a troubled kid (Brett Kelly). The Christmas caper set a record at the time for how much profanity it used, but it wasn't for naught as it's now considered among the best R-rated holiday films out there. For Rooney and his Old Hollywood background, though, it was an awkward fit, especially considering his more wholesome Christmas filmography.
When the audition was brought up, Ficarra mentioned that Rooney was meant to play Marcus and that the audition still existed on a tape with Zwigoff. Requa elaborated, noting how Rooney's Old Hollywood tendencies showed through in his audition. He explained:
"We're doing another project, we're going on the town with Terry. We're gonna do another project with Terry, this amazing series that he wrote about record collecting, and about shellac records, and it's amazing. We're gonna go out on the town with that now. We want to talk about this because we want Terry to dig into his closet because there's a VHS of Mickey Rooney auditioning as Marcus. Because the whole thing is that Mickey Rooney, he'd be doing the scenes and you know the profanity was, at the time, the most F words in any movie, and Mickey Rooney would be doing the scene and the time would come up for him to say 'fuck.' He would just go and pause, and then he would go on and then another, like a 'shit,' he paused and he would go on. And then Terry said to him, he said, 'Mickey, why aren't you saying the dialogue?' He goes, 'There's a lady present.'"
Rooney's old-school gentlemanly nature was endearing and hilarious to both Requa and Ficarra with the former emphasizing how adamant the actor was in upholding his beliefs. "I’ll do it on the day, but for now I won't because there’s a lady present," Requa recalls Rooney saying. Ficarra added, "Because there won’t be any ladies on the set, I guess. Because he's Old Hollywood."
#MickeyRooney #BadSanta #TerryZwigoff
For interviews, movie reviews, and more visit https://collider.com
FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL
https://twitter.com/collider
https://instagram.com/collider
https://facebook.com/collider