Beck Says He 'Stupidly' Turned Down a Zoolander Role That Went to Bowie

Beck told Jimmy Fallon on Tuesday night that he turned down a role in Ben Stiller's 2001 fashion satire Zoolander — a part that then went to David Bowie. "And he asked me to be in the movie and I stupidly said no," Beck said on The Tonight Show. "And they got David Bowie."

The revelation came deep into a 10-minute interview. Fallon had read that during the making of Beck's 2002 album Sea Change, the musician would watch the cult comedy to lift his mood. Beck's answer took the story somewhere better.

Someone in the cast, he said, had told him that Owen Wilson's character, the freewheeling model Hansel, was partly based on him. "I don't know if it's true, but I'll take it, because 'Hansen' — Beck Hansen — 'Hansel,'" Beck said. His full name is Beck Hansen.

What does Beck think inspired Hansel?

Fallon pressed him on it. "I think it was just the freewheelin' something, I don't know," Beck replied. The host then produced a photo of Hansen and Wilson side by side, and the resemblance does the arguing for itself — the two look separated at birth.

The anecdote has a neat symmetry. Beck reportedly leaned on Zoolander for comfort while recording Sea Change, his most melancholy record, and one of that film's central characters may have been modeled on him. He watched a version of himself to get through the album.

The performance: 'In the Night' on strings

Beck didn't just chat. He closed the episode with a notably moody performance of "In the Night," a ballad from his newly released album Ride Lonesome.

A dozen orchestral string players joined him, along with fellow guest Sacha Baron Cohen, plus some mild stage fog. "Darkness came on by with stories of the sky," he sang, "To bury all the lies in the night." He played acoustic guitar, and a Spanish guitar–style solo deepened the drama.

Beck described the album's direction for Fallon in one image: "It's the mood of, like, when you're in your house and it's almost dark but you haven't turned on the lights."

That's a useful frame for the whole evening. A moody ballad, a string section, and a confession about a lost cameo that David Bowie picked up — regret and atmosphere in equal measure. Whether Beck ever takes Stiller up on a Zoolander sequel remains, for now, unasked.