Jonah Hill is a popular name in the comedy genre of Hollywood and has been part of numerous successful movies over the years. He started his career by writing and performing his plays in a bar in NYC and eventually moved towards acting in movies with the comedy film I Heart Huckabees in 2004. His other films include Grandma’s Boy, 10 Items or Less, Rocket Science, and Evan Almighty, among others.
Hill decided to break his comedy star image after Superbad and worked in some serious movies like Moneyball and The Wolf of Wall Street. In this transition phase, the actor turned down some franchises worth billions.
Jonah Hill transitioned from a comedy star to a serious actor
War Dogs fame Jonah Hill was the king of comedy at one time with multiple hit movies like Knocked Up, Funny People, 22 jump street, This Is The End, Get Him To The Greek, etc. However, during his best phase, Hill decided to break his comic image and do some serious roles. In an interview with Rolling Stones, he said,
“I’ve done one of the biggest challenges you can do in Hollywood, which is the transition from being a comedic actor to being a serious actor, and I’m really prideful of that. I could have made a billion dollars doing every big comedy of the last 10 years and didn’t, in order to form a whole other life for myself. Now I have fulfillment doing both.”
The prestigious actor, comedian, and filmmaker later did movies like Cyrus, Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot, and Don’t Look Up, among others.
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Jonah Hill turned down two major billion-dollar franchises
As the actor started doing more diverse and elaborate roles, he was offered two life-changing big-budget movies. Hill shared in an interview with Bullett magazine about turning down two franchises. The actor was offered one of the three main parts in The Hangover, which grossed a total of $1.42 billion at the box office.
He also shared that he was offered the role of a sidekick to Shia LaBeouf in Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen. The franchise has a gross collection of $4.8 billion worldwide.
Hill commented,
“They were both really big decisions and ones that most people didn’t understand. I knew I could be a dramatic actor, but I also knew I couldn’t go from ‘Superbad’ to ‘Schindler’s List.’”
Despite turning down the big offers to star in a legendary franchise, Jonah Hill’s decision to diversify his acting career seems to have paid off well.
How Jonah Hill bagged a role in The Wolf Of Wall Street
You People actor revealed in an interview that he had met Leonardo DiCaprio at a party, where he asked to be included in The Wolf Of Wall Street. Hill shared that the competition was fierce, with names like Andrew Garfield and George Clooney being tossed around.
He said,
“Even though it’s about excess, it’s really about the darkness of money and greed and drugs and power. I knew that I was being considered among a list of other actors, but not my contemporaries—Andrew Garfield or Joseph Gordon-Levitt—people who are usually up for the same stuff as me. I was hearing names like George Clooney.”
Hill shared that Martin Scorsese, director of Leonardo DeCaprio’s film The Wolf Of Wall Street, called him for a meeting. The actor asked him to take his audition instead. Hill said,
“I was like, Fuck it. Even if I don’t get this, Scorsese called me in to meet with him and I didn’t pu*sy out.”
Jonah Hill read three scenes for the director, and two weeks later, his role was confirmed. The film received five Academy Awards nominations- Best Picture, Best Director for Scorsese, Best Adapted Screenplay for Winter, Best Actor for DiCaprio, and Best Supporting Actor for Jonah Hill.
Source- Indie Wire
