Bon Iver songs have landed on a number of movie soundtracks, but Justin Vernon has never actually appeared in a feature film himself — unless you count a Taylor Swift concert film. Turns out there was a period of time where Vernon very briefly considered acting. He’s been doing a bunch of press surrounding his new album SABLE, fABLE, and on a recent episode of the Handsome podcast, he revealed the story of auditioning for the title role of the Coen brothers’ 2013 flick Inside Llewyn Davis. (Spoiler: He was not offered the part.)
In the film, Oscar Isaac plays a struggling ’60s folk musician named Llewyn Davis, and he recorded a lot of the music live. Vernon kicked off the conversation about his audition by asking podcast hosts Tig Notaro, Mae Martin, and Fortune Feimster about times they found themselves in unexpected situations. Here’s Vernon’s own answer to that:
In 2012, [Bon Iver were] running around touring and we got an email from the people that represent the Coen brothers, the filmmakers, who are originally from this area [near Minneapolis]. I’m the biggest fan of their movies. And to put it into perspective, before I tell you this story, I made movies growing up with my friends, my sports friends and I made movies. I was never allowed to be on camera because I was so bad at acting. I was always the director. We get an email from the Coen brothers, curious if I would read for one of their films. And I immediately was like, there’s no way in high hell that I can do this. I definitely am not built for this. I don’t wanna be any more famous than I just got. No! I thought about it. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for a couple days ’cause it was such a high honor. I started getting really confusing thoughts, like, maybe this was something I was meant to do, or maybe I need to grow into this. It’s the Coen brothers, you know? So they sent a script and I had it on the road and I’m a very patchy reader. They wanted to have a meeting in New York so I read the script over the course of a month, I read it once. I went to the Upper West Side, I believe it was Joel Coen’s apartment. And I was there with my brother, and they asked my brother to wait outside and I thought that was kind of weird. And embarrassingly now, I said, “Hey, I’m such a huge fan, it’s so great to meet y’all, I’ve been really thinking about this.” I worked myself into such a tizzy that I went in and said, “I’m totally willing to move my Australia tour to do this part and really make this happen.” I was trying to talk to them about Minneapolis, and they were kinda like, “Hey man, why don’t we just sit down and read a little bit.” In that moment, it was the most dun dun dun moment in my life. In that moment I realized that I was in an audition and I didn’t know that. And I was completely paralyzed. The movie ended up being acted by Oscar Isaac, it’s a movie called Inside Llewyn Davis. So I’m sitting there, I’m a terrible actor, I’ve read this thing exactly once… It was OK that they were laughing at me, because I was so bad. But anyways, it was one of those learning experiences where if something doesn’t feel right to you, and you’re not meant to do it, maybe just let it pass.
I’ll try to remember Vernon’s advice next time the Coen brothers cold email me asking to audition for one of their movies. Incidentally, Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst was also asked to read for the same role; he was not offered the part, either, but he did become pals with Oscar Isaac.
Watch Vernon talk about the audition around the 51:45 mark during the video below.
