Before ‘Saturday Night’, Emile Hirsch Nearly Played John Belushi

Would you gain 100 pounds in the hopes of landing a role?

That was the career conundrum faced by Emile Hirsch, who joined THR‘s It Happened in Hollywood podcast to relive the making of his 2007 breakout film, Into the Wild.

But another film — a planned biopic of comedian John Belushi, in which Hirsch was chosen to play the early Saturday Night Live star — came up in conversation.

In 2013, writer-director Steve Conrad — best known as the screenwriter of 2013’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and 2017’s Wonder — wrote a screenplay based on the 2005 book Belushi: A Biography.

Conrad attached Hirsch to the lead in the hopes of finding the funding for the indie pic ahead of a spring 2014 shoot. The funding never came together, and the project fell apart.

“I was a little bit torn [about signing on],” Hirsch, 39, recalls. “I had a conversation with the director at one point, and he was talking about the weight gain. This is how stupid this guy was: He was like, ‘Just gain the weight and then we’ll make the movie.’

“And I’m like, ‘Gain the weight and then we’ll make the movie? How about let’s make the movie and then I’ll gain the weight!’ I’d be the biggest sucker in the known universe to go and like gain 100 pounds,” he continues.

Hirsch went on to say Conrad was “a nice guy — but, like, that’s crazy. … [Belushi] probably weighed like 230.”

“You have the look, but you don’t have the girth,” noted It Happened in Hollywood host Seth Abramovitch.

“The girth is a big part of the look, you know,” Hirsch replied with a laugh.

Had Hirsch gained the weight and lost the role, he would have been in good company. Ryan Gosling gained 60 pounds to play the father in Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones, only to have the director find him too hefty and fire him, replacing Gosling with Mark Wahlberg.

Belushi will be played on the big screen by actor Matt Wood in Saturday Night, Jason Reitman’s upcoming dramatization about the founding of NBC comedy institution, scheduled for an Oct. 11 wide release.

For much more from Hirsch on his career and the making of Into the Wild, listen to the full episode now. And be sure to subscribe to It Happened in Hollywood for more first-person Hollywood history.