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Jon Hamm and Dax Shepard auditioned for Adam Scott’s role in Step Brothers

Dax Shepard claimed he came close to playing James McAvoy’s character in Wanted.

Jon Hamm and Dax Shepard both auditioned for Adam Scott’s role in the 2008 comedy Step Brothers.

The Mad Men star and Without a Paddle actor both auditioned to play Derek Huff, the arrogant younger brother of Will Ferrell’s Brennan Huff, in Adam McKay’s comedy.

Recalling his audition, Hamm said on Tuesday’s episode of Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, “Adam Scott and (Rob) Riggle and me were all in the waiting room. I could hear Riggle going full Riggle in the room. I’m literally like, ‘He’s gonna break through the wall, he’s the Kool-Aid Man, he’s such a big choice guy.’ I’m like, ‘I gotta go 180 from that.’ I just whispered it and I did not get that part.”

Riggle played Randy, Derek’s friend and co-worker, in the film.

Shepard added that he was “resentful” of Scott for landing the part instead of him – until he saw what the Severance star did with the character.

“Adam Scott got it and I didn’t know Adam Scott all that well, I wasn’t friends with him yet,” Shepard explained. “So he got that and I was resentful and then I saw it and was like, ‘Oh yeah, he’s done it much better than I could have and he deserves it.'”

While exchanging stories about losing roles, the podcast host revealed that he was close to playing the lead in 2008’s Wanted after James McAvoy temporarily became unavailable. He claimed he was in the middle of negotiating a deal when McAvoy returned.

“I didn’t know who James McAvoy was and then about four months later, I go and see The Last King of Scotland and I’m having a transcendent experience watching this guy act,” he recalled. “And (his name) comes up (in the credits) and it’s this guy that I was hating and I was like, ‘God bless, I would never hire me over this guy.'”

Hamm also shared that he lost a role in the 1998 disaster movie Deep Impact to Jon Favreau.

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