Sometime in the next 18 or so hours, I’m going to do the annual quoting of A Christmas Story on my Twitter. You should unfollow me now.
I came across this delightful interview that Peter Billingsley did with Buzzfeed News that made me really happy to read.
[After he auditioned for the film and] didn’t hear back from [Director Bob]Clark for weeks, Billingsley just thought, oh well, he’d lost the role. “Bob Clark said for whatever reason that I was the first kid that he saw,” says Billingsley. “But [he] thought, Well, jeez, you can’t just hire the first person you see. So my assumption was, ‘Well, that didn’t go well.’ But whatever. You were quickly onto the next thing.”
Thousands of kids later, and after an eventual callback, Billingsley did indeed land the film’s lead role, and shot the film in Toronto and Cleveland over roughly a month in the dead of winter. “This was a real little grinder kind of indie [film],” he says with affection. “It took [Bob] 12 years to get the movie made. Nobody wanted to fund it, this period movie about a BB gun. Nobody cared about it.”
I think about stories like this a lot. I think about how it’s almost always the little indie movies that nobody wanted to give a chance that end up becoming the films that define a generation. There’s a similar, likely made up by my mom and a publicist story, about Rob Reiner seeing me before anyone else for the role of Gordie in Stand By Me. There is also a similar story about how nobody wanted to release the film, no studio wanted to fund the film, everyone in the industry at the time had passed on it, and when we landed at Embassy (before it was bought by Sony), it still wasn’t a sure thing (HA A SURE THING THAT’S VERY CLEVER WHEATON) and the production was nearly cancelled just a few days before we were supposed to begin filming. We were already on location, and Rob Reiner called Norman Lear, who wrote a personal check to get the movie made.
So. For the five of you who don’t know, Peter Billingsley played Ralphie in A Christmas Story. We both auditioned for the role, and even went to final callbacks together. I wrote about it way back in 2001:
I think that A Christmas Story is the greatest Christmas movie ever made. Each year, I watch it, over and over, on TNN or TNT or TBS, or whatever T-channel does that marathon, and I never, ever, get tired of it. Every year, when I watch it, I am reminded of the time, when I was about 10 or so, that I auditioned for it. The auditions were held on a cold, rainy day in late spring, down in some casting office in Venice, I think. I saw the same kids that I always saw on auditions: Sean Astin, Keith Coogan, this kid named “Scooter” who had a weird mom, and Peter Billingsley, who was very well known at the time, because he was “Messy Marvin” in those Hershey’s commercials. I sort of knew Peter, because we’d been on so many auditions together, but I was always a little star struck when I saw him. (One time, I saw Gary Coleman on an audition…now, this was HUGE for all of us kids who were there, because we’re talking 1982 or 83…and he was Arnold freakin’ Jackson, man…wow). [tangent] Whenever I see Sean Astin, I sob at him that he got to be in Goonies, and I didn’t, and he always says, “Hey, man, you got Stand By Me. I’d trade all my movies for that.” I haven’t seen him since he did Lord of the Rings…but something is telling me that he wouldn’t be so keen to trade that. 😉 [end of tangent]
So I remember that audition, for A Christmas Story. The scenes we had to read were the one where Ralphie is telling Santa what he wants, and panics, telling Santa that a football is okay, the one where Ralphie is decoding the Little Orphan Annie message, and the one where he thinks he shot his eye out.
There’s a similar, possibly apocryphal story about Stand Be Me that claims I was the first kid Rob Reiner saw for Gordie. I’m not sure if it’s true, but I do know that we were also a tiny indie movie nobody wanted to fund, no studio wanted to release, and was nearly cancelled literally the day before filming was to begin.
I sometimes look at movies that didn’t cast me, and wonder what I could have done with the role, if given the chance. Sometimes I feel sad when that happens. But I don’t feel that way about A Christmas Story. Peter is perfect in that role, and though I’d known he made a career for himself working behind the camera, I didn’t know what, precisely, he’d done. It makes me happy to know that he’s another survivor of the Child Actor’s Club.
I watch A Christmas Story every single Christmas and have for years. It’s a family tradition now.
Holy crap, Wheaton!
Just when I’m thoroughly jaded by stories coming out of Hollyweird and TMZ, you drop this on us (again). So glad you made it through OK, with no loss of weirdness, and with a great perspective on the child actor milieu.
Me, I’m having an awesome Christmas Eve, doing random stuff all over San Diego, skipping between rain clouds and reading awesome blogs.
Wil: Enjoy watching the movie again this year, and Merry Christmas to you and yours. You do good things.
Thanks for sharing your Christmas Story story. It’s one of my favorites.
I enjoy your posts also on FB and Twitter. All the best to you in the coming year!
Nice try Wheaton, you aren’t getting us off twitter that easily. 8 pm here and the littles are in bed and homemade pizza cooking on the stove. Love Actually is just starting and I’m going to try to get through it without bawling about Alan Rickman.
The thing I love most about A Christmas Story is that, at the time it came out, I was already very familiar with Jean Shepherd’s writing. One of the things that make it great is how it so perfectly captures Jean’s tone.
I also knew and loved Shepard’s stuff. I dated back to an album he made called “The Declassified Jean Shepard”. I still remember his story on that record about his brother Rand. How do the piggies go?”
Randy, dammit!
I didn’t know you auditioned for that movie, i thought that movie was older than it was like i thought it came out before you even, and you’re like 15 years older than me. though any movie before i was born is liable to be 5-20 years older in my head than it actually is. Anyways i remember thanksgiving growing up TNT or TBS or something like that having that movie played over and over again and us watching it. I didn’t care for football still don’t. though i love to cook so if someone wants to watch football, i’ll be like yes and i’ll cook you food while you watch, except on thanksgiving because i’d probably make their stomach explode or them throw up everywhere.. anyways i have fund memories of that movie.
I was just watching A Christmas Story yesterday. Still love it. But Stand By Me was by far my favourite movie when it came out. First album I ever bought actually. Anyhow, love both films, you and Peter were both great fits for the roles you got. Hey, Merry Christmas.
The movie is wonderful, and I’ve also seen it as a live play. Thanks for another great post.
I’ve watched A Christmas Story at least 30 times so far this year; if I weren’t following you yet (and I am) I would follow you just for this experience. Huzzah!
Great as always post 🙂
As for sean…he is doing purflix these days.
Merry Christmas man. Keep on keeping on!
So, whenever I watch A Christmas Story, I’m reminded of how the very first person who ever tweeted to me was one Wil Wheaton who said:
“You used up all the glue ON PURPOSE!”
I talk to a lot of folks often on Twitter now, even all these years later. Thanks for starting the conversation, Wil. 😉
My Christmas movies that are Annual Musts are A Christmas Story, Scrooged!, and Die Hard. If there’s time and inclination, we also watch The Santa Clause and The Family Man. I don’t need any of the “classics” anymore. Realizing more and more, there are A LOT more “holiday favorites” available than there were in childhood, probably because filmmakers keep MAKING them!
So much respect for you, for sharing your respect for your peers (as well as the similar backstories). Thank you, Wil.
Love hearing these behind the scenes hollywood stories. You should get together with Kevin Smith and do a clerks type show about hollywood. Life around fame just fascinates me. Anyway I am sick and medicated right now so what do I know.