Fans fell in love with Russell Tovey in his turn as Kevin in the queer drama Looking, but he was almost cast as a very different character.
The beloved series about gay men in San Francisco only ran from 2014 to 2016, but Tovey left a lasting impression as video game whiz Kevin Matheson.
On the show, Kevin falls for his employee Patrick, played by Jonathan Groff, but it was nearly Tovey who scored the role as Patrick.
Recently, Tovey opened up for the first time about which role he first auditioned for at a Q&A at the British Film Institute on Wednesday following a screening of Looking director Andrew Haigh’s latest film, All of Us Strangers, Attitude reports.
The two men were moderating the Q&A together when the 42-year-old actor asked Haigh what it was like to cast All of Us Strangers. The director confessed he’d never had a “bad experience” during casting before asking Tovey what it was like for him when they were casting Looking.
“We did screen tests,” the American Horror Story actor said. “I remember there was two days where I knew it was between me and Jonathan Groff. And I would go in with a Ritchie or I’d go in with a Dom or whatever and then he’d go in with all the others and it’d be back and forth.”
Tovey then revealed that he found out he lost out on the role of Patrick in an unfortunate way. “I found out via Twitter that I hadn’t got the role because they put it out online and I was having a wee in the middle of the night,” he confessed.
But all was not lost because Haigh gave him hope that there would still be a role for him. “I remember you saying to me ‘If it goes to series [after the pilot] we’ll write you in,’” Tovey said.
Not everyone loved Looking when it first premiered, Haigh recalled later in the conversation. “A lot of people were angry with us,” he said, admitting that “it’s hard” when you get a negative response to a project that is so personal.
Looking is streaming on Max.