The NY Times has a Q&A out with Louis C.K. today in advance of his new HBO special Oh My God’s debut next Saturday. In it, C.K. reveals that he pursued a lot of big names to play the character of Jack Dall, the guy who trained him for his Letterman tryout last season, before he thought to cast David Lynch, who nailed the part. Here’s C.K. explaining what happened:
I sent it to Jerry Lewis. We got a phone call from his personal secretary saying, “Jerry is not interested at this time.†We reached out to Woody Allen, who said, “I can’t contribute to this right now.†I got a really nice e-mail from Al Pacino. Martin Scorsese said: “Louie’s terrific, I enjoy the program. I can’t be any part of this right now.†What I learned is that the level I’m at now I get polite nos. It used to just be nothing but silence …I Googled [Francis Ford] Coppola to see if he had acted in anything. And on the page I was at: directors, David Lynch. I thought: “That would be really weird. It doesn’t make any sense.†I put him in my head and I read the script, and I’m like: “This is way better than any of those guys. This is the only guy that could ever do it. If I don’t get David Lynch, I’m not doing it.â€
Hopefully, C.K. can talk one of these into doing the show next season. The fact that they’re giving him such polite no’s is definitely a good sign.