Margot Robbie, Dustin Hoffman and Michelle Pfeiffer. Photos / Getty
Some actors are so desperate to impress during auditions they end up taking things a little too far.
From using real weapons to assaulting the people they were auditioning with, here are five stars who went overboard during auditions.
Dushku, who is best known for playing Faith in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, once revealed that she missed out on a role after scaring the sh*t out of the director.
"I pulled a knife on a director in one audition," she said.
"I know he didn't like that very much, but I felt good about it because it seemed like it was in tune with the character. But I think I got a little too close for comfort with my prop for that director's taste. They went with, like, Natalie Portman. That was not a good one."
The former Neighbours star made quite the impression during her audition with Leonardo DiCaprio for Wolf of Wall Street.
"In my head I was like: 'You have literally 30 seconds left in this room and if you don't do something impressive nothing will ever come of it. It's a once-in-a-lifetime chance, just take it'," Robbie told Harper's Bazaar.
"And so I start screaming at him and he's yelling back at me. And he's really scary. I can barely keep up.
"And he ends it saying: 'You should be happy to have a husband like me.
Now get over here and kiss me.' So I walk up really close to his face and then I'm like: 'Maybe I should kiss him. When else am I ever going to get a chance to kiss Leo DiCaprio, ever?'
"But another part of my brain clicks and I just go — Whack! I hit him in the face. And then I scream: 'Fu*k you!' And that's not in the script at all. The room just went dead silent and I froze."
Melanie Griffith's daughter shocked a director when she decided to flash a bit of flesh during an audition.
"I had an audition, and I got really into it, got really into the scene and it was really dramatic and I took my shirt off, and then you didn't have to do that," Dakota Johnson told The Hollywood Reporter.
"And then afterwards, they were like: 'Uh, that was great. That was really nice,' and I said: 'Thanks,' and had to pick my shirt up off the floor and still talk to them and put it back on. It was inappropriate. And embarrassing."
The Rain Man star lost his cool during an audition with "the most famous casting director from New York" in the 1960s.
"She did all the plays, all the Broadway plays," Hoffman recalled.
"She is sitting across the desk saying her lines, and I am saying mine, and she stops and says: 'Come here. Bring your chair here, right next to me'. And I say: 'Why?' And she says: 'Because I can't hear you, and you have never been on the stage or on Broadway, and you are going to have to reach the last row.'
"I said: 'Yeah, I know. I have been studying acting for about seven years now, but I'm not on Broadway now, I'm just sitting in front of you.' So, she said: 'I know, but I couldn't hear you. That's why I asked you to sit next to me.' I said: 'Okay. Can you hear me now?'
"I was getting so angry. Well, at that point she said: 'Speak up,' and I screamed as loud as I could, every line after. She called my agent and said:
'If you ever send that maniac around here again I will never see another one of your clients.' I really lost it."
Director Brian De Palma thought Pfeiffer would be perfect to play Al Pacino's lover in Scarface. But there was just one problem, Pacino didn't rate her.
"My last credit before that was Grease 2, can you blame him?" Pfeiffer told Jimmy Fallon in an interview.
Pfeiffer auditioned several times over a three-month period and things went from bad worse.
"I was terrified and I was really young and I knew he didn't want me," she said. "As it went on, the worse I got because I got so afraid."
Eventually she was let go, only to get a surprise call back a month later for a screen test.
Convinced she had already blown her chance, Pfeiffer said she wasn't at all afraid during the screen test.
"We did the restaurant scene ... where I kind of freak out," she recalled.
"I threw dishes and everything went flying and I broke things. There was blood everywhere!"
Assistants rushed to her aide but couldn't find any cuts on Pfeiffer's body.
"I look over and Al [Pacino] is bleeding," she said, "and that's how I got the part!"
NYT: Soft-spoken actress is winning raves for her turn as a feisty sex worker in Anora.