Never stop learning! The movie Accepted wasn’t a massive hit when it was released in 2006, but it helped kick off the careers of several actors who became huge stars.
Directed by Steve PinkComedy about a mischievous high school senior named Bartleby Wines (Justin LongHe creates a fake college to replace all the ones he rejected from. The prank balloons out of control after Bartleby’s friends get involved, with Sherman Schrader III (Jonah Hill) creating a functional website for the school that actually accepts applicants. Bartleby also leases an abandoned psychiatric hospital near his town’s real college and renovates it to look like his made-up school: the South Harmon Institute of Technology.
Long was shocked when he first saw the script. Lewis Black. The comedian played Sherman’s uncle Dr. Ben Lewis, who the boys recruit as the “dean” of their fake college.
“In my college experience, just personally, to say it was R-rated would be sugarcoating it,” the Going the DistanceActor told Radio Free EntertainmentIn July 2006. “It was NC-17. If you’re making an accurate, realistic college film, I felt it was sort of necessary, not only because of the sexual stuff, but just the ease with which college kids say the F-word.”
He was relieved that the producers kept the movie at PG-13 because it made it more accessible to a wider audience. “More people can watch and it has more the tone of, like, an ’80s comedy, like a John CusackOr Michael J. Fox movie,” he explained. “Those were movies that I grew up with, and I loved, that inspired me.”
The DodgeballStar later stated that Hill was one of his favourite parts of the job. AcceptedBut the Superbad actor almost didn’t get the part. After Long was cast as the lead, he pushed the studio to bring Hill back in for another audition — and the Oscar nominee nailed it.
“I remember when he left that audition, everyone was like, ‘Well, he’s definitely in the movie somewhere,’” the EdCBS News interviewed the alum in September 2021. “We laughed a lot making that movie.”
Scroll down to see the cast. Accepted has been up to since the film’s release.
