Alongside Reeves, 24 actors were called back and auditioned in various pairs to find a good chemistry. On that day, Reeves was one of the first to arrive along with Alex Winter, and while waiting for the auditions to start, found out they had a lot of personal details in common, such as a common interest in bass guitar and motorcycles. They quickly developed a rapport between each other during auditions, which earned them the title roles. A longstanding urban legend has it that Reeves auditioned for Bill and Winter for Ted. According to Winter, the story emerged because the characters are so similar, and even he and Reeves sometimes became confused about who was who. Through rehearsals, Winter and Reeves worked on developing their Bill & Ted characters to move them away from being stereotypical comedic slackers and insert sincerity and other more human elements into them. While they developed mannerisms outside of the script, influenced partially by British comedians like Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan, the pair kept to the dialog written by Solomon and Mathseon, with Winter calling it "very floral, so paradoxical to how you think dumb Valley guys would speak". Winter said that to develop Bill's character, he borrowed from the looks and trends along Venice Beach, California, where he had been living, including wearing a baseball cap backwards and pulling part of his hair through that opening. Winter said of casting George Carlin as Rufus as a "very happy accident". The role of Rufus had not been established when filming started. Herek stated that their intention was to have Eddie Van Halen as Rufus, given the frequency of Van Halen references in the screenplay, but this was not possible because of the low budget for the film. They started looking at other actors who would fit the rock motif, making a short list that had included Ringo Starr, Roger Daltrey, Sean Connery, and Charlie Sheen. They soon recognized that no one on this list was a comedian. Producers Scott Kroopf and Bob Cort had just finished filming "Outrageous Fortune" which co-starred George Carlin, and with the film's production nearly complete, were able to get him to complete filming. The Three Most Important People in the utopian society were envisioned to be portrayed by the band members of ZZ Top. However, Solomon had connections to the E Street Band, The Tubes and The Motels, and were able to get Clarence Clemons, Fee Waybill, and Martha Davis, respectively, for the Most Important People.