Wedding Crashers, released in 2005, follows divorce mediators John Beckwith and Jeremy Grey (as played by Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn), who crash weddings for the purpose of seducing women. However, after attending the wedding of one of the U.S. Treasury Secretary’s daughters, the pair’s perspectives on things begin to change. John becomes interested in one of the bride’s sisters and quickly falls in love with her, despite the fact that she has a boyfriend. Jeremy takes a little bit longer, but eventually starts to fall for another of the Secretary’s daughters himself.

As has been the case with many film productions, a number of people were considered for roles in Wedding Crashers who didn’t end up getting hired. For example, names like Harrison Ford and Burt Reynolds were thrown around for Treasury Secretary William McCleary early on, but director David Dobkin was adamant about casting Christopher Walken. Isla Fisher, who played Vaughn’s love interest, Gloria, also didn’t think she’d land the role because everyone who auditioned before her was more famous than her. In the waiting room, she was seated next to Shannon Elizabeth from American Pie and Oscar-winner Anna Paquin.

Nicolas Cage Almost Played Will Ferrell’s ‘Wedding Crashers’ Role

One role that surprisingly wasn’t cast until the last minute was that of Jeremy’s old wedding-crashing mentor, Chazz Reinhold. After failing at his attempts to woo the Secretary’s daughter and refusing to be a part of Jeremy’s marriage to her sister, John visits Chazz, who turns out to be a middle-aged man living with his mother. Chazz eventually reveals that he picked up his latest girl while crashing a funeral, and convinces John to come to one with him. The experience makes John reconsider his thoughts on love, and he decides to go to Jeremy’s wedding after all.

According to Dobkin, they’d been pursuing Will Ferrell for the part for a while, but were having a hard time getting him to sign on. As Dobkin explained during a 2020 episode of the SpitballingPod, Ferrell didn’t actually agree to be in the film until the night before he started shooting his scenes. Their backup plan for the role was Nicolas Cage, which Dobkin acknowledged was “crazy” and “weird,” especially given the year the movie was made. The director went on to say, “By the way, now Nic is a whole other thing, you know. Totally off the reservation.”

Test audiences loved Ferrell’s cameo so much that they brought him back in to film the final wedding sequence. The second preview scored significantly higher than the first due to his involvement.