A Casting Director Once Told Charlie Day That He’ll Never Work in Comedy
If Charlie Day had listened to his worst critics, he never would have begun a career in TV comedy, and Paddy’s Pub would have closed down after its very first health inspection.
Today, the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star and producer is one of the most celebrated comedic actors on television, but like most great artists, Day took his share of lumps during his climb to the mountaintop. After graduating from Merrimack College with an art history degree, Day moved to New York City to test out his performing talents on its competitive comedy scene, often acting in sketches alongside his future Always Sunny collaborators David Hornsby and Jimmi Simpson. Then, when Rob McElhenney recruited him to shoot a shoestring budget pilot about a bunch of a-holes living in Philadelphia and running a bar together, Day’s comedy career took off into the sitcom stratosphere where he has since remained for the last two decades.
But in between the Wikipedia-approved bullet points of Day’s ascension to the top of TV comedy, the 49-year-old writer, actor and director experienced the exact same level of constant, soul-crushing rejection that dissuades so many aspiring artists from pursuing their dreams. As Day explained during his recent appearance on Andrew Santino’s golf podcast No Bad Lies, at one audition in his early career, a casting director told him that he simply didn’t have the skillset for a career in comedy.
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That feedback has to be one of the worst misreads in the history of television — and here we thought Charlie was the illiterate one.
When Santino asked his golf partner to tell him a time when “life dealt you a bad lie,” Day joked that being 5-foot-7 with a borderline countertenor vocal register would have been enough of a strategic disadvantage to last him a lifetime — if he had a negative outlook, that is.
“I never looked at it that way,” Day said of his vertical and verbal limitations, positing, “The people who I see do worst in life think everything’s a bad lie. They think every situation is like, ‘Oh, that’s not fair, I’m fucked, this is impossible.’” But not Day, as he explained, “I don’t know if I cultivated this or I’m just lucky to have had a good attitude in that way, but I don’t look at things that way.”
“Especially in show business! You take so many lumps,” Day continued of how his perspective helped him through those demoralizing early years of his career, recalling the rejection he faced as a young actor, “Somebody hates you, especially when you’re starting out. You’re nobody. I would go in auditions, and they’d be like, ‘Well, he’s interesting, but he’s never gonna work in comedy, because he ain’t funny!’ Word for word!”
Day decided not to take those negative notes to heart, and thanks to his decision to commit to It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, he’s been scrubbing toilets and bashing rats for the last 20 years. That kind of sustained success can only come from an optimistic outlook that turns every Nightman into a Dayman and the thick skin to tune out the critics — sometimes in the form of a song:
