Stanley Tucci ‘Couldn’t Get a Job’ After His Most Iconic Role

Stanley Tucci admitted in a new Vanity Fair interview that he had a hard time finding work after his iconic supporting turn in 2006’s The Devil Wears Prada.

Tucci played the right-hand man to Meryl Streep’s fearsome Miranda Priestly in the Oscar-nominated fashion-industry comedy. The film was a hit with both critics and audiences, with Tucci’s character one of the movie’s most well-remembered, but the actor revealed he had difficulty finding work after the film’s success.

“After The Devil Wears Prada, I couldn’t get a job, and I didn’t quite understand that, but that’s just the way it was,” Tucci reflected. “So I went and did stuff that I didn’t necessarily want to do, but I did it.”

The actor appeared in a string of movies throughout 2007 and 2008 which are hazily recalled, at best. But after once again starring opposite Streep in Julie and Julia (2009), playing husband to Streep’s Julia Child, Tucci’s career began to gather steam. He received an Oscar nomination for The Lovely Bones the same year before going on to star in the Hunger Games franchise.

Tucci’s career has taken off in the ensuing decade, with the actor carving out a niche for himself as a cookbook author and television host amidst appearances in mega-budget blockbusters and critically acclaimed arthouse fare like Conclave, the religiously-themed potboiler in which Tucci is currently starring.

But one thing Tucci isn’t certain about is the long-rumored sequel to The Devil Wears Prada. “No one will let me answer that,” the actor said when asked about a follow-up. “I think they want it to happen, I would imagine. But I cannot really speak to it because it might not happen. I don’t know.”