Whitney Cummings Says Francis Ford Coppola Gifted Her Wine and a Signed Book After Bombing “Megalopolis” Audition: 'So Embarrassed'

• Comedian and actress Whitney Cummings recalled her experience auditioning for Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis on the Dec. 7 episode of her podcast Good For You.

• Cummings said that the audition was so nonconventional that she thought she was unknowingly featured on an episode of the celebrity prank series Punk'd.

• "I would do anything to get a copy of that just to get my reaction when he was like 'And your son is going to war, English accent,' " she said.
  

Whitney Cummings' audition for Megalopolis was odd enough that she thought she was on Punk'd.

Cummings, 42, recalled meeting Francis Ford Coppola and auditioning for his most recent movie on the Dec. 7 episode of her Good For You podcast. A clip that included her anecdote began circulating on TikTok when she shared it to the platform on Monday, Dec. 16.

When Cummings' guest Grace Weissend asked her if she ever saw Megalopolis when it released in theaters in September, the comedian and actor joked that auditioning for the movie was "such a core trauma for me" and expressed surprise the movie actually released. "I will tell this story - I don't even care," Cummings said, recalling that she memorized "a couple of pages" days in advance to prepare to audition for five-time Oscar winner Coppola, 85.

"Everyone is so quiet. There is no vibe of, 'We're at an audition, it's nice to meet you,' it's just so awkward and I go in . . . and I'm like, 'Okay, where do you want to start first?' And he's like, 'Oh, no, we're not going to do the scene,' " she said. "I was like, 'Okay, it was three days of my life.' He's like - I believe it was he would just throw things at me like, 'In an English accent, say goodbye to your son going to war. Go.' I'm not kidding."

Cummings added that Coppola asked her to perform further accent work on the spot as she began pantomiming herself looking for hidden cameras during the audition. "Literally, because I did the show Punk'd, I literally was like, 'If I'm being Punk'd, this is genius, this is actually genius,' " she said. "Because I disassociated the entire thing."

Representatives for Coppola did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.

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Cummings admitted during the podcast that she felt Coppola's approach to the audition was unfair for not running the scenes she prepared to read and that she was asked to improvise with Coppola himself.

"He's like, 'Let's improvise around the scene,' but I'm improvising with him and he's Francis Ford Coppola," she said. "He can make an amazing movie. I'm sure he's improvised on set a lot, but he's not yes and'ing. I'm yes and'ing, and I'm like, 'Look, this guy's got Oscars, but not for improvising.' "

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In addition, Cummings added that she was "on the verge of tears because I'm so embarrassed" by the end of the audition, only for Coppola to gift her a signed copy of his book and a bottle from his wine brand.

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"It was just so humiliating and so confounding. In that moment, I was like, 'I thought I understood how this business worked in some capacity,' " she said. "I would do anything to get a copy of that just to get my reaction when he was like, 'And your son is going to war, English accent.' It might have been before I stopped getting Botox so maybe it was just like one crocodile tear, but I just remember looking up [for Ashton Kutcher hosting Punk'd.]"

Megalopolis starred Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel among a large ensemble cast; actors like Emmanuel, 35, told The Hollywood Reporter in May that their audition and rehearsal process for the movie also included improvisation and theater-style games. 

"This is the first time I truly thought, 'I'm being Punk'd and this is like, perfect,' " Cummings recalled on her podcast. "If someone can get me to do an English accent in front of Francis Ford Coppola, that is so funny. That is so funny to me."

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