Julia Roberts originally first choice for ‘Shakespeare in Love’, quit after shitty chemistry tests
'It Was a Disaster': Julia Roberts Quit 'Shakespeare in Love' After Awful Chemistry Reads and Cost the Studio $6 Million, Says Producer Ed Zwick https://t.co/wA17tdQhV3
- Variety (@Variety) March 6, 2023
With mere days before the Oscars, let's look back at one of the most undeserving BP winners, 1998's ‘Shakespeare in Love’.
- Originally the production team, under Universal Studios, wanted Julia Roberts to play Goop's Oscar-winning role, back in 1992 after her Pretty Woman success. She was totally up for it but wanted Daniel Day-Lewis to be her male lead (she was in London for the following chaos). He turned it down due to commitments to film “In the Name of the Father”
-- Julia went so far to tell her assistant “for two dozen roses to be sent to Daniel Day-Lewis, along with a card that read: ‘Be my Romeo.'”
-- After Daniel peaced out, Ralph Fiennes did a screen test with Julia, but she ignored his ass and said he wasn't funny. He was gone.
-- She also did screen tests with Hugh Grant, Rupert Graves, Colin Firth, Sean Bean, and Jeremy Northam. She had issues with all of them: one was stiff, another wasn’t romantic, etc (this makes me laugh because of Notting Hill)
-- Once Julia did the costume testing, and actual began rehearsals, the production team said she had no 'magic', her accent was off and she clearly hadn't rehearsed a fucking thing
-- Julia allegedly freaked out, got insecure or something, and fled the scene, returning back to LA the next day
-- She dropped out of the movie, which had already cost $6M JUST for this testing process
-- the project was picked up again by Miramax, goop got the role with the younger Fiennes, and unfortunately the rest is history
Source: https://twitter.com/Variety/status/1632884211328614401