Justin Long has revealed that he almost missed out on a role in the beloved 2004 comedy Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, due to concerns about his age. The actor , now 45, played gawky high school student Justin Redman in the film, opposite Vince Vaughn , Christine Taylor, Ben Stiller and Rip Torn. However, Long was in his mid-twenties at the time, and has now admitted that he was “way too old” for the part.
Speaking on a recent episode of the Dinner’s On Me podcast, Long spoke about being cast in the comedy. “It was because of [the NBC TV series] Ed that I got [ Dodgeball ] because it was an episode from Ed that the writer, Rosson, the writer/director saw, and he wrote this part for me,” Long revealed. “The character’s name was Justin and.
.. Ben and Vince Vaughn were two of my favorites.
I so admired them. They were idols of mine, you know, and so it was such a fantasy and I was really nervous for the table read because I thought, ‘This part is mine to lose.’” “And then the studio didn’t.
.. there was pushback,” he added.
“They wanted somebody younger because I was way too old to play that part. I was, like I said, 24, 25.” However, he was ultimately cast in the role despite these reservations, and Dodgeball went on to become one of the most popular sports comedies in recent years.
In a contemporaneous review of Dodgeball , The Independent ’s Nicholas Barber wrote: “To call Dodgeball laugh-a-minute would be to do it a disservice: it has as m.