- Brandon Routh, Zack and Miri Make A Porno, 2008. “That was a Seth Rogen suggestion,” admits New Jersey auteur Kevin Smith. “We were sitting around trying to figure out who would play Bobby Long. It looked like Danny was going to do it for about two minutes and then he was like inundated with rehearsals on Land Of The Lost… We were back to square zero… I was just like: He needs to be like real salt of the Earth, like middle America, like Superman. And Seth goes “Brandon Routh!” I was like, Yeah! And he’s like “Well, let’s ask Brandon Routh.” In Seth’s world you just ask people and either they say no or they don’t. Elizabeth Banks (Miri) was around “My agent represents him, so I’ll put him on it.” We got Brandon the script and he read it and dug it and it’s a thankless role to travel all the way from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh for, because you work for two days, you have to play the straight man, everyone else gets to be really funny, but Brandon came in and actually found a way to make that role funny just by being like “Gee, oh gosh!” He played it really well. Played it straight, yeah, He’s Brandon Routh, he looks like Clark Kent! Yeah, we got lucky with that!”
- Ray Liotta, Observe and Report, 2008. The surly Detective Harrison was hand-made for McBride. His schedule was not. Enter Liotta as the cop that Seth Rogen’s Bi-polar mall security guard wants to be. “Funny as hell, that’s how demonic it is,” said Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers. “Imagine Scorsese directing Police Academy.”
- Scott Adsit, Big Hero 6, 2014. “We didn’t set out to be superheroes. But sometimes life doesn’t go the way you planned.” Jason Bateman, Josh Gad, Dennis Leary, John Leguizamo, Danny McBride, Ray Romano and Jason Sudeikis were seen (and heard!) for voicing Baymax in Disney’s first Marvel subject – winning the best animation Oscar. It unfurls in 2023 (we all know that computer battery number, right?) in San Fransokyo (‘Frisco rebuilt by the Japanese after an earthquake) and deals with a super-troupe behind the titular collective name… that nobody ever uses. “I wanted a robot that we had never seen before,” ordered co-director Don Hall “Something wholly original.” He sure got it. Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers said the film “would be a ton less fun without this irresistible blob of roly-poly, robot charisma.“
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 3