Ron Howard's mother landed 'Apollo 13' role with unexpected move

Ron Howard, who was not willing to cast his mom in Apollo 13, revealed why he suddenly changed his decision.

In an interview with Vulture published on Wednesday, August 13, the 71-year-old American filmmaker and actor confessed he did not want to cast his mother, Jean Speegle Howard, as Jim Lovell’s mom in the 1995 docudrama, which was based on the near-fatal 1970 lunar mission but his father, Rance Howard, stepped in to convince him.

After receiving the movie’s rewrite, Ron said he got his dad’s call, "who had never hocked me for work at all," and during the call, he told him, "Your mother would knock that new Jim Lovell’s mother part out of the park."

The DaVinci Code director was reluctant because Jean has "just gotten back" to the world of acting after a break.

He told Rance, "I don’t know. I mean, that’s a pretty important role," to which his dad replied, "Oh, she could do it.”

Notably, when Ron highlighted the fact that Jean was "a little too young for the role," his father disapproved of his hesitance by telling him he "could age her easily."

The Andy Griffith Show star eventually auditioned Jean at their family’s house instead of his office and after reading the scenes, he considered her acting up to the mark but thought she was not an appropriate choice for the role since she looked younger.

"I said, 'But Mom, the thing is, you’re really too young to be this woman, to be Mrs Lovell in an old folks' home,'" Ron recounted telling his mother, who was 62-year-old at that time.

"I could dye my hair, and they can increase my wrinkles," Jean responded.

However, he could not hide his doubts and to mitigate his scepticism, she "turned away and took her false teeth out and said, 'Would this help?!'"

"I said, 'Okay, okay, okay! You got the part,'" the Eden creator remembered.

Ron confessed he "underestimated" his mother when he was younger because "I put my dad on such a pedestal, and he deserved it, hell of a guy, but I realized that she was the reason the course of the family history changed,” acknowledging, “She was the one with the clarity and the vision. I totally missed that as a young man.”