The on-set feud Julia Roberts denied she was part of: “I think they should shut the fuck up”
In the early 1990s, Julia Roberts rose to the top of the Hollywood mountain thanks to roles in hits like Steel Magnolias, Sleeping with the Enemy, Flatliners, and, of course, Pretty Woman. She must have assumed she was signing up for another enormous success when she came aboard a new Steven Spielberg blockbuster. However, if rumours are to be believed, the experience quickly turned sour, and soon Roberts found herself fielding questions about a supposed on-set feud – questions that made her very angry.
Spielberg isn’t generally a director who makes cult classics – instead, he tends to make films that are beloved hits right out of the gate. He doesn’t have a 100 per cent record, though, and 1991’s Hook is one of his anomalies. Making a sequel to JM Barrie’s classic 1911 novel Peter and Wendy set in the modern day, with an adult Peter Pan having forgotten his adventures in Neverland, sounded like a novel way to approach material audiences were familiar with. Casting A-listers like Robin Williams as Peter, Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook, and Roberts as Tinkerbell made the movie seem bulletproof – yet it was deemed a box office disappointment despite making over $300million.
Over the years, the film has developed a dedicated cult following, with lots of fans feeling it was misunderstood at the time. Fascinatingly, though, one person who likely doesn’t count herself as a fan is Roberts, whose tough time on the set led to the press dubbing her “Tinkerhell”. At the time, her personal life was in tatters because she called off her wedding to Kiefer Sutherland at the 11th hour after finding out he had cheated on her. She then started a new relationship with Jason Patric, who starred with Sutherland in The Lost Boys. Spielberg later told Den of Geek, “Julia probably went through the most trying times of her life. And it was simply bad timing for all of us that she happened to start on Hook at that low point.”
To Roberts’ horror, other rumours began swirling around the media that accused her of being in danger of losing her job because of a drug addiction. The frustrated star told Entertainment Weekly, “There were never any drugs. Never. That’s why it’s so absurd and frustrating. Why should I have to explain something that’s never been an issue in my life? But I’m forced to because every paper in the country is writing that I’m a drug addict.” An unnamed source also alleged, “She threw shoes at somebody,” to which Roberts replied, “If they don’t have balls enough to say who they are, I think they should shut the fuck up.”
Regarding the Tinkerhell nickname, Roberts pushed back strongly, claiming, “I never heard it.” She admitted to becoming aggravated at the process of making Hook, which had endless delays and often kept her on wires on a completely different set from the rest of the cast. However, she was adamant any other star would have felt the same way. “I’m a normal person,” she insisted. “I mean, if I sit in my trailer for six hours doing nothing, I’m going to say, ‘What the fuck is going on?’ I don’t think that’s an outrageous question. I don’t think that’s temperamental either.”
The worst aspect of the whole experience for Roberts, though, was the rumour that she and Spielberg didn’t get along during filming. She denied this was the case and was therefore astounded when the director appeared on 60 Minutes and admitted that he wouldn’t want to work with her again after Hook. He qualified that by saying, “I think Julia is a really, really good actress”, and indicated that it was simply a bad time for her – but she wasn’t happy with his comments.
In 1993, a disappointed Roberts told Vanity Fair, “He took these hesitations as if he had to choose his words very carefully when asked about me. I watched it and thought, ‘Is this the same man I had whipped cream fights with on the set? Is this the same man who said that he couldn’t wait every day to get to our stage because it was more fun than the big stage?'”
All in all, Roberts felt Spielberg had bowed to the pressure of the majority opinion, which was that she had been temperamental and difficult on the set of Hook. She wanted him to defend her and tell what she believed was the truth, but his hesitation to do that was “a hard lesson to learn.” Ultimately, she even said the beloved director’s behaviour made her think of him as a turncoat.
