Ben Stiller Was Up For The Role of Link in ENCINO MAN, But Here's How Brendan Fraser Landed The Role
Before Brendan Fraser was cast in the role of the caveman Link in the classic 1992 movie Encino Man, filmmakers Les Mayfield and George Zaloom were looking at possibly casting a young Ben Stiller in the role. The actor came in and auditioned and he even went as far as to do a screen test, but in the end, things didn’t really work out as Stiller just wasn’t what they were looking for.
Mayfield talked about Stiller’s audition, saying that he “demonstrated the potential of the character and he was absolutely fantastic. What I recall is, once we actually got our start dates locked up, there was a conflict and he wasn’t available.”
Zaloom went on to expand on Stiller being great, and how they had also seen Fraser around the same time, saying, “He was even screen-tested. And he did a really good job. But at some point, we had seen Brendan. Brendan just nailed it.
Mayfield added that Stiller “came in for free and did this film test and just kicked ass. He showed us where this character could go.” But, in the end, they needed to tell Stiller that he wasn’t the guy. Zaloom shared, “It was hard to tell Ben that we didn’t want him. I kind of wish that didn’t happen.”
Fraser was so much fun in the role, though, and they totally made the right choice in casting him! At the time, Fraser was a 22-year-old unknown actor. After graduating from Cornish College of the Arts in 1990, he made the move to Hollywood because, he was “tired of waiting tables, parking cars, and selling balloons.”
But, when this role came around, he wasn’t interested in playing the caveman! He was looking at more serious roles, and in 1991, he landed the coming-of-age boarding-school drama School Ties. While he was testing for School Ties, he got the call for Encino Man, and when talking about that he said: “At the time, I was testing for School Ties. One phone call that came through my agent’s office was, ‘Listen, I heard he’s testing for School Ties. Tell him we’ll offer him the part of the caveman if he doesn’t.’ But I knew where my priorities lay, and I wanted to do School Ties a great deal.”
Mayfield said that they “chased Brendan very hard. He came in and auditioned. He owned the character. He was super intelligent and intuitive. He brought in a multidimensional, rich, comedic character and did it right in the room.”
Zaloom added: “He did it with movement. And his looks and all that. He physically adapted and became that character without even having to say anything.” Writer Shawn Schepps talks about seeing the audition tape saying: “I was watching audition tapes. And I saw Brendan’s. I was blown away, and then stopped the tape, and I was running out, saying, “You guys have to come see this guy! This is the guy!”
This is what Pauly Shore said about it: “When I saw his screen test, I was like, ‘Holy shit. This guy became the caveman! This is some real shit! This is not a spoof.’ I was very turned on by how convincing he was.”
It was very hard for the creative team to convince Fraser to join the movie and he actually passed on the opportunity multiple times, but they were relentless and they kept pursuing him. The actor was worried it would come off as silly and goofy and they kept trying to ease his mind.
Mayfield said: “I remember having phone calls [with Fraser]. It was really discussing, what is the movie about? For me, it was about family. And the idea of creating family is, to me, the theme of the film. Hopefully, that was part of what allowed him to make that choice to join us.”
Fraser ultimately agreed to sign up and do it and he shot the film back to back with School Ties.
Source: Inverse