Sean Penn said his feeling of entitlement almost cost him his breakout role in the 1982 teen comedy film, Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
During a virtual appearance on the Tonight Show Featuring Jimmy Fallon, the Oscar-winning actor, 59, admitted that even before he was a star, he carried around a sense of entitlement when he went on auditions. Penn told Fallon that long before he had "a penny" in his pocket, he had a feeling of entitlement as an actor, not because he thought he was so good, but because he thought everyone else wasn't so good.
"And that gave me a lot of confidence," he explained.
Penn said he "resented" every audition he went to and ended up doing a "terrible" read for the part of Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
"I just wanted them to just give it to me," the actor admitted. "But I auditioned — and terribly and flat — and I knew I wasn't willing to hit the music of this character I thought it was and had familiarity with too. I'd grown up with a lot of people like that."
Penn revealed that he only landed the iconic role of the stoner high school student in the Amy Heckerling film because a casting director named Don Phillips saw his potential even after his awful audition.
"Don Phillips came running into the parking lot, where my broken down Mazda I borrowed was sitting, and I was just about to leave and he said, 'Get back in here and audition you're a** off…You're not going anywhere.'"
Penn said he went back in and gave more to the audition. He ended up having a "great time" making the movie, which also starred Judge Reinhold, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Phoebe Cates and featured brief appearances by then-unknowns Nicolas Cage and Forest Whitaker.
"He didn't let us call him by his name until the last day when he gave Amy [Heckerling], Art [Linson, the producer], and I each a ceremonial shoe and said, 'My name is Sean,'" Crowe told Vanity Fair.
Before Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Penn only had a few acting credits with guest roles on TV shows like Barnaby Jones and Little House on the Prairie. He made his film debut in the 1981 film, Taps.