Josh O'Connor We now know him best for his work in hit shows and films like The Crown , Challengers and the upcoming Knives Out movie Wake Up Dead Man , but Josh O’Connor has revealed that long before he was an international name, there was one major role he missed out on. During a new interview with Radio Times , Josh revealed that his first ever audition was for the role of Marius in the film adaptation of the musical Les Misérables , which arrived in cinemas in 2012. “They were auditioning everyone! But I didn’t know that,” the Emmy winner recalled. “I don’t have any actors in my family, so everything was new to me.” Having never seen Les Mis on stage at the time, Josh swotted up on Marius’ song Empty Chairs At Empty Tables, and was told afterwards: “Josh, we would love you to come back”. He continued: “I got a recall, which was good, but I’m very dyslexic, so I didn’t read the full email. I just read, ‘We want you to come back!’. “A week later, I’m on my way, walking through central London to go to my recall and I bump into a friend of mine who was doing the play Richard II with Eddie Redmayne. He’s like, ‘Where are you going?’. And I was like, ‘I’m really nervous. I have a recall to be in the movie of Les Misérables’. And he said, ‘My friend Eddie is playing Marius!’. “I then realised my recall was for a very minor role, but I hadn’t learned the song ... I didn’t even know the song. And it was awful. I didn’t get that part.” Eddie Redmayne as Marius in 2012's Les Misérables Eddie Redmayne did, indeed, get to play Marius in the Les Mis film, which wound up being a breakthrough moment for the British actor, who won his first Oscar just a few years later. It wasn’t all bad news for Josh, though. He, in fact, did end up playing Marius himself, albeit in a BBC drama based on Victor Hugo’s book Les Misérables, which also featured the likes of future Stranger Things star Joseph Quinn and his on-screen mum Olivia Colman , as well as David Oyelowo , Adeel Akhtar and Dominic West , who would take on the role of Prince Charles in The Crown when Josh stepped down at the end of season four. Read Josh O’Connor’s interview in full in the new issue of Radio Times . READ MORE: 'That's Not OK': Harris Dickinson Opens Up About Feeling Objectified After Erotic Thriller Babygirl Elliot Page Is Overjoyed At Reuniting With Christopher Nolan For The First Time Since His Transition In The Odyssey Alexander Skarsgård Opens Up About What Makes The Sex Scenes In His New BDSM Biker Romance So Unique