When most people think of Mickey Rooney and classic Christmas movies, the first things that likely come to mind are his iconic portrayals of jolly old St. Nick. Starting with the iconic Rankin/Bass stop-motion gem Santa Claus Is Coming to Town in 1969 and running all the way to 2008 with A Miser Brothers’ Christmas, he was the voice of Santa for many throughout the years. According to writers Glenn Ficara and John Requa, however, Rooney was being considered for a much raunchier holiday-themed role – as Billy Bob Thornton‘s elf assistant Marcus in the black comedy Bad Santa. During an interview with Collider’s own Steve Weintraub for Rabbit Hole, Ficara and Requa told the story of Rooney’s audition and their inspiration behind Marcus.
Executive produced by Ethan and Joel Coen with Terry Zwigoff directing, Bad Santa follows Willie T. Stokes (Thornton), a crusty, alcoholic, sex-addicted con man who poses as Santa at local stores in order to rob them with his crass little helper Marcus (Tony Cox). Willie is terrible with kids, though, and on one Christmas, his behavior finally catches the eye of a mall security guard (Bernie Mac). He’s only able to find a possible way out through the help of a troubled kid (Brett Kelly). The Christmas caper set a record at the time for how much profanity it used, but it wasn’t for naught as it’s now considered among the best R-rated holiday films out there. For Rooney and his Old Hollywood background, though, it was an awkward fit, especially considering his more wholesome Christmas filmography.
When the audition was brought up, Ficarra mentioned that Rooney was meant to play Marcus and that the audition still existed on a tape with Zwigoff. Requa elaborated, noting how Rooney’s Old Hollywood tendencies showed through in his audition. He explained:
“We’re doing another project, we’re going on the town with Terry. We’re gonna do another project with Terry, this amazing series that he wrote about record collecting, and about shellac records, and it’s amazing. We’re gonna go out on the town with that now. We want to talk about this because we want Terry to dig into his closet because there’s a VHS of Mickey Rooney auditioning as Marcus. Because the whole thing is that Mickey Rooney, he’d be doing the scenes and you know the profanity was, at the time, the most F words in any movie, and Mickey Rooney would be doing the scene and the time would come up for him to say ‘fuck.’ He would just go and pause, and then he would go on and then another, like a ‘shit,’ he paused and he would go on. And then Terry said to him, he said, ‘Mickey, why aren’t you saying the dialogue?’ He goes, ‘There’s a lady present.'”
Rooney’s old-school gentlemanly nature was endearing and hilarious to both Requa and Ficarra with the former emphasizing how adamant the actor was in upholding his beliefs. “I’ll do it on the day, but for now I won’t because there’s a lady present,” Requa recalls Rooney saying. Ficarra added, “Because there won’t be any ladies on the set, I guess. Because he’s Old Hollywood.”
Marcus Was Inspired By the Coen Brothers’ Ed Gale Stories
In the end, Rooney was never considered a serious candidate to play the role of Marcus. They instead found their man in Cox who made the character a holiday classic with his hilariously vicious back-and-forths with the not-so-jolly Thornton and Mac especially. One little detail that makes Marcus extra hilarious, however, is his elf ears which very clearly do not match his skin color. Ficarra explained how that one aspect came to be, adding, “And my favorite thing, we showed up on one of the shooting days of Bad Santa, and we saw Marcus, Tony Cox, and he’s African American and he had the little white Caucasian elf tips, and we were like, “Oh, we’re in good hands, this is a genius moment.”
In recalling stories about Marcus, Requa also remembered how Bad Santa initially came together with the Coen Brothers. Their stories about Ed Gale, who played the Little Man in their 2000 classic O Brother Where Art Thou? and has been in a number of acclaimed comedies including Spaceballs and Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, inspired Marcus’s fiery comebacks with lines related to his height. Beyond Marcus, Requa also noted they ultimately merged the Coen Brothers’ original pitch with something related to the crime capers of Donald Westlake. He explained:
“When Joel and Ethan [Coen] were pitching us the idea, we’re at the dinner with Joel and Ethan, and they said, ‘We have this idea for a movie called Bad Santa. He drinks beer and stuff.’ [Laughs] That was the pitch. And then we said, ‘Okay, well, we have this Donald Westlake shit that we’re obsessed with so we think we can turn Bad Santa into like a Donald Westlake movie.’ Then during dinner we were drinking wine and having a good time, and they started telling stories about the little person who was on O Brother, Where Art Thou? and he was like a complete dick. He talked to the producer, he was like, ‘Why do you put me on the 25th floor? I can’t reach the 25th button in that elevator.’ You know, he was just like a complete dick. And we’re like, ‘Well, that’s going in the movie.'”
Bad Santa can currently be streamed through Fubo or Showtime as part of a bundle with other streaming platforms. Stay tuned here at Collider for our full interview with Ficara and Requa. You can watch part of the interview in the player above, and check out the Bad Santa trailer below:
