Auditioning can be a brutal process for an actor to go through, as tons of people who look exactly like you fight for the exact same role. So anything an actor can do to make themselves stand out from the rest is usually a good thing, but it's a real tightrope walk; standing out isn't always used positively. It's a gambit that Kelly Rohrbach took when she auditioned for her role in this month's Baywatch by wearing a red swimsuit to her audition. Rohrback may have ended up with the role, but auditioning in a bathing suit isn't something she would recommend doing.
For the audition, I decided it would be a good idea to wear the suit. Don't ever do that, anyone. So, it was like January, dead of winter in New York City. I did my audition, so I put the suit on, I think it's great. I think, 'I'm gonna kill this, this is a great idea, no one else is going to have this.' I get to the audition; there's five other girls there looking exactly like me, not wearing the swimsuit. Wearing appropriate attire, jeans and a t-shirt. They called my name. I stood up, I dropped trou, I was like, 'I'm going in guys.' It was pure pity. They were like, 'Oh man, she's wearing the suit.
Kelly Rohrback retold this story to Jimmy Kimmel on his talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live! about how her audition for Baywatch was less than ordinary. As it turns out, Rohrback and her sisters were die-hard fans of the original Baywatch television show, and she possesses vivid memories of watching it even when she was four years old. This lead to a joke between her sisters that any time one of them comes across a red bathing suit (frequently worn on the show), they had to try it on. Rohrbach did this in 2014, posting a picture of herself to Instagram. Kimmel asked her if she showed this picture to the casting people, but she did one better and just wore it to the audition.
Obviously, this move played out well for her, but ordinarily, that red swimsuit might as well have been a red flag to casting. Later on, Kelly Rohrbach went to the director (Seth Gordon) and apologized for wearing it, but he said it was cool. As Jimmy Kimmel says, she's lucky there was a man in the room.
You can check out Kelly Rohrback'srecount the full story herself with Jimmy Kimmel in the video below.
Baywatch is based on the television of the same name, but tells the story of a group of heroic lifeguards with a more comedic twist. The film stars Dwayne Johnson, who must lead his squad of lifeguards to stop a criminal operation happening on their beach. Filling out the rest of the cast is Zac Efron, Alexandria Daddario, Kelly Rohrbach, Ilfenesh Hadera, Jon Bass, and Priyanka Chopra.
Baywatch will be swimming into theaters on May 25, 2017.
