 Philip Casnoff (qv) was nearly passed over for the role of Elkanah  Bent because the producers thought he was "too short". Casnoff won  them over when he did a practice scene in which he slammed another  actor against a wall and yelled at him viciously. Casnoff noted that  to do that audition, he summoned his feelings of rage from being  recently mugged in a parking lot.