James Corden is best known for playing loveable goofball Smithy in Gavin and Stacey.
The 44-year-old actor co-wrote and starred in the comedy series with Ruth Jones, after becoming pals while filming another show, Fat Friends.
Since then, Corden has become a big name in America while hosting The Late Late Show and starred in a number of huge movies.
He made the move into Hollywood by appearing in a lot of musical films, such as Into the Woods, Cats, The Prom and Cinderella.
However, life could have been very different for James, as he came close to being cast in one of the biggest movie franchises of all time.
He auditioned for the role of Samwise Gamgee, Frodo's best pal, in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Speaking to actor Josh Horowitz on his Happy Sad Confused podcast, James opened up about how the role was one of his first auditions as an actor.
"Not good," the comedian replied to Josh when asked how it went, before going into more detail. "Every single person in London auditioned for Lord of The Rings, everybody, and I auditioned for Samwise. I was doing the accent and everything... Mr. Frodo!
"Two of my other friends went in. And then we all got called back the next day, and then we got called back the next day, and then none of us got called back after that."
Obviously James didn't get the role of Sam as it went to Stranger Things star Sean Astin, while fellow American Elijah Wood was cast as Frodo Baggins.
When asked if failing to get the part effected his love for the movies, Corden joked: "I enjoyed it until the last one, and then I was sort of like, 'Oh, ok, I've seen this now — I should've gone to see 'Love Actually'."
Corden has also recently been speaking about missing out on the lead role in critically-acclaimed film The Whale.
The Mummy star Brendan Fraser has received much praise for his performance as an obese English teacher called Charlie who hoped to connect with his teenage daughter.
But James claimed he "narrowly missed out" on playing the 600-pound obese man because he was "too young".
He revealed he was "going to play that part" and that Tom Ford was "going to direct" at one point, but the plans clearly fell through.
"I was going to play that part, and Tom Ford was going to direct," James told Deadline, adding that he was too young to "do it justice".
Director Darren Aronofsky reportedly confirmed all of James' claims in the new interview, also adding that George Clooney was "involved" too.
The Oceans 11 star reportedly "only wanted to make the film if an actual 600-pound unknown could be found to play the lead role".
Corden has previously spoken about larger actors not being cast as romantic leads.
Speaking to David Tennant on the Doctor Who actor's podcast in 2019, James said that "chubby" actors are routinely excluded for romantic roles and are only used as the comic relief friend.
He blamed an industry aversion to showing bigger stars falling in love or having sex, saying they have to accept in film or on TV that "certainly no one ever finds you attractive".
Speaking of his breakthrough while he was performing in Alan Bennett's The History Boys in 2004, Corden said: "I was in the play with seven other boys who were at a similar age and a similar place in our careers, and pretty much every day, three or four of these boys would come in with a massive film script under their arm."
The Late Late Show host said that for one role, his peers were sent the script for the leading stars, while he got just two pages to play a newsagent at the start of the film.
"I really felt like people were going, 'We think you're quite good. It's just because of what you look like'," he explained.
Saying that larger actors are often typecast, he added: "You will be good friends with people who are attractive and will perhaps chip in with the odd joke every now and again.
"As you get older, you'll probably be a judge in something or you'll be dropping off a television to a handsome person in a sitcom."
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