Harry Potter star Tom Felton, who played Draco Malfoy in the popular film franchise, has recalled how he had an awkward audition with Welsh legend Anthony Hopkins. The actor, now 35, was hoping to land a role in the 2012 film Hitchcock, which was a biographical drama about filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock.

Speaking about the mortifying experience, Tom shared: “This was not my finest hour when it came to auditioning. I got the sides (scripts) very last minute. I knew I wasn’t right for the role. I’ve never seen Psycho — the film was about the making of Psycho — I didn’t know anything particularly well, but I knew I wasn’t right for this.”

He added: “I’ve very rarely called my agent before going into an audition and said, ‘I really don’t think this is for me,’ but I did on that occasion,” before describing how Anthony Hopkins “knew he didn’t know what he was doing”.

Entertainment Weekly reports how, upon meeting Hopkins, Tom described how the actor subjected him to a challenging audition. “He decided to go off book. He was like, ‘Let’s put the scene down. Let’s just test the water with the characters,’” the actor recalled. “And I proceeded to probably babble out the worst three minutes of improv in an awful American accent that anyone has ever seen.

“He had a very graceful way of saying leave, which was, ‘Thanks very much for your time,’” Tom shared. “I sheepishly tucked my tail and walked out that one.” The film, itself, centered around the relationship between Hitchcock (Hopkins) and his wife Alma Reville (Helen Mirren) while shooting the film Psycho, and the cast included Scarlett Johansson, Toni Collette, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jessica Biel, and Danny Huston.