2013’s Inside Llewyn Davis was a major role for star Oscar Isaac. It turns out it could have instead been a major role for Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, as he recounted on Tig Notaro, Mae Martin, and Fortune Feimster’s Handsome podcast.

It’s a story better listened to or read in full (below), but in summary: In 2012, Vernon was invited to audition for the movie’s lead role, and after some thought, he decided to go for it. So he went to an audition, which he didn’t realize was an audition, and… well, Isaac ended up doing the movie, not him.

Watch the video above (the story starts at 51:45 in) and read a transcript of Vernon’s tale below.

“In 2012, [Bon Iver was] running around touring and we got an email from the people that represent the Coen brothers, the filmmakers, who are originally from this area [near Minneapolis]. I’m the biggest fan of their movies. And to put it into perspective before I tell you this story, I made movies growing up with my friends, my sports friends and I made movies. I was never allowed to be on camera because I was so bad at acting. I was always the director.

We get an email from the Coen brothers, curious if I would read for one of their films. And I immediately was like, ‘There’s no way in high hell that I can do this. I definitely am not built for this. I don’t wanna be any more famous than I just got. No.’

I thought about it. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for a couple days ’cause it was such a high honor. I started getting really confusing thoughts, like, ‘Maybe this was something I was meant to do, or maybe I need to grow into this.’ It’s the Coen brothers, you know?

So they sent a script and I had it on the road, and I’m a very kind of patchy reader. They wanted to have a meeting in New York, so I read the script. Over the course of a month, I read it once. I went to the Upper West Side, I believe it was Joel Coen’s apartment. And I was there with my brother, and they asked my brother to wait outside, and I thought that was kind of weird. And I walk in and embarrassingly now, I said, ‘Hey, I’m such a huge fan, it’s so great to meet y’all. I’ve been really thinking about this.’ I worked myself into such a tizzy that I went in and said, ‘I’m totally willing to move my Australia tour to do this part and let’s really make this happen.’ I was trying to talk to them about Minneapolis, and they were kinda just, ‘Hey man, why don’t we just sit down and read a little bit?’

In that moment, it was the most dun-dun-dun moment in my life. In that moment, I realized that I was in an audition and I didn’t know that. And I was completely paralyzed. The movie ended up being acted by Oscar Isaac, it’s a movie called Inside Llewyn Davis.

So I’m sitting there, I’m a terrible actor, I’ve read this thing exactly once. […] It was OK that they were laughing at me, because I was so bad. But anyways, it was one of those learning experiences where if something doesn’t feel right to you, and you’re not meant to do it, maybe just let it pass.”