Stanley Tucci names ‘horrible’ film role he’d never play again: ‘It was a tough experience’

‘I tried to get out of playing the role,’ actor remembered

Stanley Tucci has reflected on his decades-long acting career and identified the one role he’d never want to reprise.

Years after the 62-year-old actor found his breakout success playing convicted murderer Richard Cross on the 1995 two-season legal drama Murder One, he landed an even darker role.

In 2009, Tucci played serial killer and rapist George Harvey in director Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of Alice Sebold’s novel The Lovely Bones, opposite Saoirse Ronan, who played Harvey’s 14-year-old victim Susie Salmon.

Speaking with Entertainment Tonight at the recent premiere of his new Prime Video action series Citadel, Tucci recalled the “horrible” character saying he “would not play George Harvey again”.

“It’s a wonderful movie, but it was a tough experience. Simply because of the role,” he explained.

“I asked Peter Jackson why he cast me in that role,” Tucci continued, revealing he had “tried to get out of playing” it.

“Which is crazy because I needed a job,” he added. “But I was like, ‘Why do you want me?’ And he said, ‘Because you’re funny.’ And I thought, ‘OK.’ But I understand what he was saying.”

Stanley Tucci (Getty Images)

“I think what he meant was, not that I wouldn’t be serious about it, but that I wouldn’t be overly dramatic about it, which is what you have to do when you’re playing somebody who’s that awful.”

Tucci stars as Bernard Orlick in the forthcoming science fiction show Citadel, led by Priyanka Chopra and Richard Madden.

The two play spies whose global agency was destroyed by a powerful crime syndicate.

Citadel premieres on Prime Video on 28 April.