Leonardo DiCaprio posse member recalls ‘Great Gatsby’ audition

Having an A-lister like Leonardo DiCaprio as your friend doesn’t hurt if you’re an actor. But it also doesn’t guarantee success at an audition.

Actor Jay R. Ferguson, who’s known for his work on shows such as The Conners and Mad Men, revealed on a recent edition of the Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum podcast that his good friend got him an audition for Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 take on The Great Gatsby.

The conversation turned to the story after Ferguson said he would not be okay with the Oscar winner just handing him a role.

“I will tell you, though, I was, for a very small moment — I wouldn’t even say I was in the running,” Ferguson said. “I think they probably just did it as a favor to Leo — but when they were doing Great Gatsby, I had just come off of The Lucky One…which is also a Warner Brothers movie. I did reach out and ask if he could assist in at least getting the director to look at my tape of my audition. And he did.”

A 2012 Nicholas Sparks drama, The Lucky One was led by Zac Efron and Taylor Schilling.

His Gatsby audition involved another mutual friend and a costar in the movie, Toby Maguire — plus a bit of luck.

“At the time, there was another actor in the running for it, but then he fell out,” Ferguson said. “And the director evidently liked my audition, and so they decided to set up a test.”

It sounds good, but the two-hour session was “wildly uncomfortable.”

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“They’ve been my best friends for years and years,” Ferguson said. “So it was me and Leo and Toby and Baz Luhrmann in a hotel room at the Chateau [Marmont]. Doing all these scenes and doing take after take.”

But it was really even longer, because DiCaprio and McGuire helped Ferguson prepare, which he called “just another testament to how awesome those guys are.” He said they knew he wanted to earn it.

When he didn’t get the part, Ferguson, who’s now 50, was “a little sad.”

He said his friendship with DiCaprio remains strong, but they see less of each other nowadays.