17 Parts Created Specifically For Actors

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According to Vanity Fair, Weil actually first was considered for Rory. Producers loved her, but didn’t think she was right for the character, so they created the part of Paris specifically for her!

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When Ike Barinholtz was hired as a writer for The Mindy Project, Mindy told him she might be able to find something for him on the show, but he thought she was just placating him. However, a week into writing for the series, Mindy thought Barinholtz would make a good character and wrote up a scene for him, which he then read for Mindy and the executive producers. Without even technically auditioning, Barinholtz was cast in the second episode and on.

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Chis Colfer actually originally auditioned for Artie, but he wasn’t right for the role. Still, the showrunners liked him so much that they decided to write a role just for him.

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Smith was working for casting director Allison Jones during the screen tests for The Office pilot when producers became so impressed with her reading that they wrote the part of Phyllis for her.

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John Ratzenberger auditioned for Norm and didn’t get the role. After the audition, he said to producers that they should include a bar know-it-all. Producers created the role of Cliff and ultimately cast Ratzenberger in the role.

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The role of Sun was created for Yunjin Kim after her audition for Kate. This was the case with many of the characters on Lost, many of whose characters were tweaked or even created to better fit the actor, according to a DVD featurette.

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On an appearance on Ellen, Crews said that the character of Terry didn’t exist and that he was called in to meet with the producers without them having a role for him. According to Crews, they wanted to add him to the show so much, they named a character Terry and incorporated parts of Crews’ life into the character’s life.

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Peretti originally auditioned for the part that would later be renamed Rosa, but she didn’t get the role. However, producers called and said they were writing a different part for her.

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Nicolas Sparks had just decided to brainstorm some ideas about another teen book kind of like A Walk to Remember when he got a call from Disney saying Miley wanted to do a film like A Walk to Remember. He then came up with the concept and presented it to Disney and the Cyruses, and he actually ended up writing the screenplay before the novel with the knowledge that Cyrus would be playing the main character.

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Courtney really wanted to play Nancy in the film, and even sent in a tape. They wanted someone with more experience, but ended up writing the small role of Gretchen for her in the film.

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NBC asked Rodgers and Hammerstein to write an original musical specifically for TV; the pair decided to write their own version of Cinderella. But it was Julie Andrews’ involvement that really sold them on the project, causing them to move from NBC to CBS (which had signed Andrews), and they began adapting the story with Andrews in the title part. Thus, their version of Cinderella was based on Andrews!

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After Jonathan Groff filmed the pilot for Ryan Murphy’s Pretty Handsome, Murphy told Groff about Glee, the show he wanted to do if Pretty Handsome didn’t get picked up, saying that if all went well, he’d later write a role for Groff on the show. As it happened, Pretty Handsome did not get picked up, and Groff later went on to play Jesse St. James on Glee.

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The Parks and Recreation casting director called Aubrey the “weirdest person she’d ever met” and told Mike Schur (the show’s creator) to meet with her. After meeting her, Schur wrote the part of April for her.

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Reedus loved the script for The Walking Dead but discovered it had already been cast — asking to just read for the casting directors (just wanting to do a guest spot), the role of Daryl was actually written for him.

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Matthew Gray Gubler auditioned for Spencer four or five times before ultimately being cast. The character was originally written to be much more stoic, and Gubler said he was more gregarious in his auditions, and was told he was “really wrong for this part” every time he went back in. Eventually, his version of Spencer won out, and Spencer became the weirdo fans everywhere loved.

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Mindy told Huffpost about the experience of the Facts of Life producers coming to her all-girls school to “authenticate” their scripts — she met with Diff’rent Strokes actress Charlotte Rae and All in the Family producer Norman Lear, and then was called into her headmaster’s office the next day. “It seemed that Charlotte Rae had fallen madly in love with me, in part because I reminded her of her best childhood friend Natalie,” Cohn said. “And I was irrepressible, charming, and hilarious. So she asked the producers to create a part for me in the show.”