Darren came in for casting and began talking about knowing where to source the appropriate tuxedos, and that he could wear a pair of Dean Martin's shoes that he owned. During the course of the meeting, Behr became convinced that Darren was already performing the Fontaine piece, having moved into it seamlessly in conversation. Darren had deliberately avoiding simply reading the script at rehearsal, as he disliked doing cold reads; instead, he was intentionally improvising lines that he thought that the character would say. Yet he did so in a way that he recalls prompting Behr to say, "Man, it's funny, I wrote a line just like that for Vic." After Darren left, Behr excitedly told the other writers how good he was, but that perhaps they should still see other actors. Producer Hans Beimler replied, "Are you out of your mind? What are you talking about? Vic Fontaine was just in the room. There's no question, there's no question! He's the guy!"