Fans have been tuning in to Only Fools and Horses since it first aired back in 1981, with fans loving the iconic characters brought to life by David Jason, Nicholas Lyndhurst and Buster Merryfield.
However, despite being synonymous with the role now, Sir David wasn’t the first choice of producers, with Jim Broadbent, who later played Professor Horace Slughorn in the Harry Potter film series and antiques shop owner Samuel Gruber in the Paddington series, being an early favourite.
During an appearance on The Graham Norton Show in 2022, Jim revealed that he turned down the role of Del Boy as it conflicted with his appearance in a West End show. “Originally, I was the second choice for Del Boy,” he explained. “The first choice was Enn Reitel, but he didn’t fancy it and I couldn’t do it because I was doing a show in the West End.”
The actor confessed to The Observer in 2022, that he felt the show wouldn’t have succeeded in the way that it did had he been cast in the iconic role. “Either it wouldn’t have succeeded without David Jason or, if it had, I wouldn’t have wanted to stay beyond three series,” he told them. “I always say my greatest contribution to British culture is not doing Del Boy.”
The Oscar-winning star said similar things in 2014 when speaking to The Guardian, sharing: “I would have done one series, and it wouldn’t have been particularly successful. And even if it had been successful, I’d have wanted to do something else. And then the world would never have known Only Fools and Horses.”
Despite not having the starring role, Jim did go on to feature in the series, playing corrupt police officer DCI Roy Slater in three episodes of the classic sitcom. And it’s a role that has stuck with him, with the star revealing it’s what most fans recognise him for!
“I only went in for three episodes – never allowed to forget it,” he previously said. “I saw one the other day, Class Reunion, and it was on and I sort of hovered by the sofa. And then I sat down and watched it right through. It was extraordinary. It’s quite non-PC some of it now. It’s sort of ‘oooh’, it’s 30 years ago. But still it’s by far the most recognition I get on the street is for Only Fools.”
David’s casting
David has previously joked that producers thought he was going for a different role when he auditioned for the show. Appearing on BBC Breakfast, he shared: “When I went into the interview with the director and John Sullivan because I’d played so many silly old fart parts, like Blanco in Porridge and the 100-year-old gardener in Hark at Barker, they thought I’d come up for the Grandad part.
© Getty Images“When I said no, I wanted to read Del Boy, that’s the part, that is the part that I want, and so they said, well go on see if you can read that, and the rest I suppose is history.”
In his autobiography, David Jason: My Life, he wrote about how several other actors had been considered for the part, joking: “Why, perhaps you, dear reader, were considered for the role, too, and turned it down. It would hardly come as a shock to me.”
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