The video is one of the most iconic in modern music history.
The star of the Eminem music video for his single ‘Stan’ has admitted that Macaulay Culkin was the original preference to play the title role.
Devon Sawa, known for his roles in Casper and Final Destination, recalled the infamous 2000 music video.
“They went out to Macaulay Culkin first,” the 43-year-old told People Magazine. “I think that they wanted him, and he wasn’t available, or didn’t want to do it or whatever.”
The video, directed by Dr. Dre centred on Stan, an obsessive fan of the Eminem, who wrote the the rapper dozens of letters and claims to be his biggest fan.
However, after seemingly being ignored, Stan kidnaps his girlfriend (played by Dido, who features on the song) and drives off a bridge while recording a final message on a tape recorder.
The song and its video became a massive hit and the term ‘Stan’ has since entered modern vocabulary as another name for an obsessive fan of something.
Sawa also revealed that Dr. Dre hired him to play Stan as he “had just seen Final Destination and was a fan.”
Fans can’t believe who was originally meant to star in video for Eminem’s ‘Stan’
While Sawa has a long list of movies and TV shows he’s featured in over his long career, the former child star lists ‘Stan’ as “one of the proudest things I’ve been a part of.”
Sawa also delved into his experiences on set, where he was tasked with lip-syncing Eminem’s lines on camera.
“I’ll never forget, they told me on the day that I was going to lip-sync it,” he said.
“I remember, after the first take I did, Dre running in and being like, ‘It was good, but can you try it with some rhythm this time?’ And I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ And that was kind of how the day went.”
He continued, “Dr. Dre was there, D12 was there, I think Snoop was wandering around, Cypress Hill. It was just such a wild three days of filmmaking, it was amazing.”
Last month, Eminem put a call out on Twitter/X for ‘stan’ to help him with a documentary about his life.
Also included in the post was a link to a website with the header “Stans Film” and a questionnaire.
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