While some fans are wondering what Craig Ferguson has been up to since leaving The Late Late Show, most are still pining for the days when he graced the early hours of the morning with his strange, eccentric, and totally unique sense of humor. It was this sense of humor and the 'I don't care' mentality that encouraged him to go into an audition that clearly wasn't meant for him. While he bombed at the audition, there's no doubt that it directly set him up to become massively successful. Here's precisely what happened...
Leading Up To The Job That Made Him Famous
During a discussion on the About Last Night Podcast with Adam Ray, Craig spoke about some of the best guests he's had on his talk show. Of course, Betty White came up. This is when Craig launched into the story about his origins in Hollywood. The comedian had started his career in his native home of Scotland but didn't do anything all that notable until he decided to pick his life up and move to Los Angeles. The very first celebrity he ever worked with was Betty White.
"I did a show called Maybe This Time which was one of those awful mid-90s sweater over your shoulders-type shows, you know what I mean?" Craig explained to his two hosts on the podcast. "It was an awful show but it had some people on it that were lovely. It was Betty's first job after The Golden Girls. And she was fantastic."
Working with someone with the type of Hollywood credentials as Betty White, as well as Marie Osmond who also starred on the show, was hugely important to Craig. Although he didn't ever worry about living up to their expectations because, as he claims, he was too focused on his own ambition to let that get in the way.
"Back then, I was only thinking about me," Craig said with some level of regret. However, this same life perspective kept him going as he moved from job to job, trying to find some traction as both a comedian and an actor in Hollywood.
But it wasn't much longer until Craig landed himself a cushy job on a major comedian's show... Drew Carey was massive in the mid-1990s. And his near-10-year stint as the star of his very own sitcom was largely beloved. More importantly for Craig, it was his first big and consistent job in Hollywood. In fact, it's what made him famous.
Getting Hired On The Drew Carey Show After A Terrible Audition
"The story of how I got that job is very strange," Craig admitted on Adam Ray's podcast. "I auditioned for the part of the Hispanic photographer on Suddenly Susan, the Brooke Sheilds TV show. What happened was, there was some kind of clerical error. Because I go into this... I mean, I look at the sides for the audition and it's [with a terrible Hispanic accent], 'Antonio. The photographer. Handsome. Hispanic.' And I'm like, 'Okay'. So, I wasn't going to go to the audition because this is crazy."
But Craig was in no financial position to turn a chance like this down. Not only that, but his focused self-determination pushed him to at least introduce himself to the casting directors. This proved to be a pretty smart decision on his part.
"I go in... and I don't know what to do, so I did this terrible Speedy Gonzalez voice," Craig laughed. "And they were like, 'Oh my God, this is awful!' But they were all laughing. And I knew it was awful, and I was laughing. So, at the end of it, the casting director said, 'We'll, obviously you can't do this'. And I was like, 'I know'. But we got talking and he said, 'We are looking for a guy for on The Drew Carey Show, can you do an English accent?' And I said, 'Ci'."
However, it turned out Craig couldn't really do an English accent either. But that didn't stop him. He claimed that all the English actors who play Scottish characters can't actually do a Scottish accent.
"So, I felt like it was balanced," Craig admitted.
After years of working on his English accent while playing Nigel Wick in 185 episodes of the 233-episode-long Drew Carey Show, Craig has finally been able to master an English accent. After all, being able to do that accent got him hired as Owl in Winnie The Pooh.
Playing Nigel Wick was also the reason he was invited on The Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn. It was during this interview that the executives at CBS thought that he would make an adequate replacement for the other Craig. Eventually, Craig Ferguson decided to take the hosting duties on the late-night talk show. While he may or may not have been upset about not taking over David Letterman's job, there's no doubt that Craig has gone on to become massively successful and a cult-icon in the world of late-night. And that all happened because of a terrible audition in the mid-1990s.