Danny McBride was asked about Kanye West’s suggestion that he could play the lead in a Ye biopic.
Back in 2022, the Eastbound & Down star revealed that the controversial rapper had surprised him with the casting idea in 2018.
During a comedy actor roundtable hosted by The Hollywood Reporter, McBride revealed: “One time, I did get a phone call from Kanye West, and, this is real, he came to my house in South Carolina and wanted me to play him in a movie.”
An incredulous Bowen Yang, who was also taking part in the roundtable, asked: “You to play him?!”
“Yeah,” McBride confirmed, “He flew down to South Carolina, and I took him out in a boat for the day, and he said that he wanted… me to do a movie of his life, and he wanted me to play him.”
Yang asked if West perhaps intended the film to take inspiration from the Todd Haynes film I’m Not There, in which singer-songwriter Bob Dylan was played by several different actors, including Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw, and Marcus Carl Franklin.
At the time, McBride said simply: “It was one of the most incredible days ever. It was pretty awesome.”
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter to mark the finale of his hit HBO comedy The Righteous Gemstones, McBride was asked whether there was a “postscript to that story.”
The 48-year-old comedian replied: “After he left, I sent him a text, just a, ‘Thanks a lot for coming down. I’ll put my head on this, see if I can come up with anything.’
“He wrote back and said that he had a great time and that he’ll remember that day forever. And that was the last time we spoke.”
In a 2020 interview with The Independent, McBride commented on the fact that he was launching The Righteous Gemstones, a comedy about a family of megachurch pastors, at the same time as West was attempting to start his own church.
“We were there first!” McBride said, laughing. “Great minds think alike, I guess.”
The Righteous Gemstones earned critical acclaim over its four seasons. The Independent’s Louis Chilton said the series was McBride’s best work, writing: “What elevates Gemstones above its predecessors, though, is its dramatic ambition, and the sheer depth of comic talent onscreen.
“All the leads are brilliant, taking big, unapologetic swings, while the supporting cast – which includes a spectacularly scene-stealing Walton Goggins as gaudy song-and-dance preacher ‘Baby Billy’ Freeman – are outstanding to a man.”
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