How Julia Roberts sabotaged herself out of an Oscar-winning role: “It was a disaster”
In 1991, Glory director Edward Zwick found himself in a pickle. He had championed a romantic-comedy script that attracted the interest of Julia Roberts, then a 24-year-old star who had just gone stratospheric thanks to the success of Pretty Woman. The script, titled Shakespeare in Love, sold to Universal and soon went into production, but what followed left Zwick, who agreed to produce the film, staring down the barrel of a $6million write-off.
You see, Universal’s interest in making Shakespeare in Love was entirely predicated on Roberts playing Viola de Lesseps, the woman who falls for William Shakespeare as he writes his most famous play, Romeo & Juliet. When Roberts agreed to star, thanks to the strength of famed playwright Tom Stoppard’s script rewrite, Zwick told Air Mail, “The mere possibility of having the Pretty Woman wearing a corseted gown got the studio excited enough to cough up the dough.”
Early in the process, Roberts became convinced there was only one man who could play Shakespeare in the film: Daniel Day-Lewis. The world’s preeminent method actor had already told Zwick he was committed to In the Name of the Father, though, so he knew she was barking up the wrong tree. Still, she insisted, “I can get him to do it”, and launched a charm offensive that included two dozen roses and the message, “Be my Romeo”.
What followed was a strange series of events. First, she walked out in the middle of a dinner with Zwick and Stoppard before refusing to turn up for the first day of chemistry reads. Then, she claimed, “Daniel was going to do the movie” and asked Zwick to cancel any further reads for other actors. But when he spoke to Day-Lewis in person, the actor reiterated he had indeed signed up for Jim Sheridan’s Guildford Four biopic.
After Roberts was told the bad news that she hadn’t been able to snag Day-Lewis’ participation, she reluctantly arrived for her first chemistry read with a potential Shakespeare. In a twist of fate that would prove hugely ironic, that actor was Ralph Fiennes, who had starred in plenty of The Bard’s theatre productions in the 1980s but had yet to make his screen debut. To his dismay, an uninterested Roberts “barely acknowledged him” during their screen test, with Zwick claiming, “I’m not suggesting she was deliberately sabotaging, but it was a disaster nonetheless”.
The director was so embarrassed by Roberts’ behaviour that he tried to apologise to Fiennes as he left, but the young star “couldn’t get out of there fast enough”. The star’s verdict on his suitability for the role was a withering, “He isn’t funny”, and she proceeded to have similar beefs with every other up-and-coming star put in front of her. Incredibly, Zwick claims that a parade of future A-listers included Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, and Sean Bean, but Roberts “found fault with all of them: one was stiff, another wasn’t romantic, and so on”.
What was the final nail in the coffin for Roberts’ involvement?
The director already had a sinking feeling about the project by this point, and his fears were confirmed a few weeks later when Roberts tested with Paul McGann of Withnail and I fame. This was a full dress rehearsal, but to Zwick’s horror, “From the moment she began to speak, it was clear she hadn’t been working on the accent”. Everyone in the room could sense Roberts’ embarrassment and discomfort, and even though the director tried to encourage her, it was still a chastening experience.
The very next day, she walked off the movie set and flew back to the US, leaving Zwick scrambling to figure out a way forward with Universal CEO Tom Pollock. There was $6million already spent on the film, with sets being built and locations being sought. Pollock was adamant he could convince Roberts to return, but much like her insistence that she could talk Day-Lewis into making the film, his powers of persuasion couldn’t get the job done. The film went into turnaround, with the studio being forced to accept the loss of 6million big ones.
In later years, a reflective Zwick concluded that Roberts was so new to stardom at the time that she was terrified of taking a big chance on a period drama like Shakespeare in Love, only for it to blow up in her face. “I made the tragic mistake of underestimating her insecurity,” he mused, “but I would never get to talk her off the ledge.”
Ultimately, it would turn out that Roberts didn’t just walk away from any film; she arguably blew the opportunity of winning an Academy Award. The film was revived several years later by Miramax, and with Gwyneth Paltrow as Viola, it romped to $289m at the box office and raked up 13 Oscar nominations, with seven wins, including Paltrow’s ‘Best Actress’ triumph. As for the irony mentioned earlier, the man who inhabited Shakespeare opposite Paltrow was none other than Joseph Fiennes, the younger brother of Ralph, who was the first man Roberts tested with.
