Mandy Patinkin has enjoyed a long and varied acting career, from The Princess Bride to Homeland. However, not every part that he considered turned out to be the right match for him -- such as the voice of Quasimodo in 1996's The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
In an interview with Collider, the Disney film's directors Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise recalled Patinkin's disastrous audition for the role. "In one of our casting sessions in New York, Mandy Patinkin came in and actually read for the part," said Wise. He was quick to acknowledge the star's appeal and experience: "Again, Mandy Patinkin – amazing actor, incredible career, big fan, disastrous audition."
The trouble began when Patinkin was meant to sing Quasimodo's solo song, "Out There". The song was written by Disney's celebrated composer Alan Menken and lyricist Stephen Schwartz, who were present at the audition.
Trousdale recounted that Patinkin "brought his own accompanist. We had a guy there. He was on the piano and everybody who came in and sang, he supplied the music." To make matters worse, "His accompanist had rearranged the song."
"You could see Alan and Stephen just turning red and levitating," said Trousdale. "Like the room behind them was getting dark."
At this point, Trousdale and Wise stepped outside to speak with the musicians. As Wise remembers it, "We could hear an animated discussion happening behind the door and then Mandy Patinkin came back out, ostensibly to work with us on a little bit of the dialogue... He was very gracious with us and he’s talking with us and nodding and a little bit intense."
Wise continued, "Then, in mid-sentence, Gary and I were talking and at one point Mandy goes, 'Guys, I’m really sorry, I can’t do this.' And he turns on his heel and he goes back into the room and shuts the door. Then the fireworks really started. The walls shook."
Patinkin's departure apparently set off a chain reaction. "Mandy chewed out Stephen so bad that Stephen was so pissed that he got up and left," said Wise. Menken followed Schwartz: "So Alan puts on his coat and his scarf and he’s out of here. So now we’ve lost Mandy, we’ve lost Alan, and we’ve lost Stephen. We’re sitting there in this smoking crater."
The audition, which Trousdale said was dubbed "The Patinkin Incident," supposedly resulted in some unofficial artwork that Disney fans may regret they won't get to see. Wise admitted that "Many drawings were made about the subject after the fact," which seems an appropriate way for an animation studio to cope with such an experience.