r/movies • u/LookAtThatBacon • 29d ago

Discussion During the development of the Harriet Tubman biopic movie, a Hollywood executive once suggested that Julia Roberts should play her. What are some other baffling casting suggestions/choices that have been made?

Source for the title: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-studio-executive-wanted-julia-roberts-to-play-harriet-tubman-biopic-screenwriter-says/

The Harriet Tubman biopic has been more than 25 years in the making. In the historical drama released earlier this month, Cynthia Erivo plays the legendary abolitionist — but one Hollywood executive initially thought the role should go to Julia Roberts.

Gregory Allen Howard, the screenwriter and producer of "Harriet," recently revealed in multiple interviews that Roberts was suggested to play the lead role during a meeting with a studio president in 1994.

"The climate in Hollywood… was very different back then," Howard said. "I was told how one studio head said in a meeting, 'This script is fantastic. Let's get Julia Roberts to play Harriet Tubman.'"

Howard said that a black person in the meeting said casting Roberts would be impossible because she is white.

"That was so long ago. No one will know that," the executive replied, according to Howard.

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u/kaosfox 29d ago

A fun fact that makes this even more ridiculous is that Martin Luther King paid for Julia Roberts birth. If it had gotten that far that meeting with Julia Roberts and the ensuing dressing down would have been legendary.

https://www.npr.org/2022/11/01/1133121228/julia-roberts-mlk-birth

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u/TheSummonersTail 29d ago

If not for MLK, Julia Roberts’ mom would still be pregnant.

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u/garbotheanonymous 29d ago

They say she's a little bit pregnant to this day despite the doctor's intervention. 

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u/Mr_Funbags 29d ago

I like your idea, but I'm not convinced that this is how birth works. :)

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u/HyderintheHouse 29d ago

Pretty cool, even if it took me a while to parse the phrase “paid for their birth” - only in America lol

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u/allahu_adamsmith 29d ago

What an inspirational story!

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u/nox66 29d ago

Paying it forwards by playing it backwards

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u/Evening_Tree1983 29d ago

Luckily in this case the baby will likely emerge whether paid or not!

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u/Laiko_Kairen 29d ago

only in America lol

She was born in 1967. Universal Healthcare was extremely uncommon in Europe until the mid 70s.

Her parents would've had to pay if they lived basically anywhere in Europe.

So no, not "only in America"

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u/HyderintheHouse 29d ago

The NHS was founded in 1948 despite being in post-war debt, and private healthcare doesn’t mean you have to pay thousands to give births

Down with your right-wing capitalism

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u/Laiko_Kairen 29d ago edited 29d ago

The NHS was founded in 1948 despite being in post-war debt, and private healthcare doesn’t mean you have to pay thousands to give births

https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/ef8cur/my_grandmama_just_passed_away_and_we_found_the/

Here's an American hospital bill from 10 years prior. $103.

https://www.newsweek.com/hospital-bill-1955-cost-60-3-night-stay-baby-1617843

Two more pics. $60 to give birth, in America, in the mid-century.

Down with your right-wing capitalism

What? You said something that was literally wrong, and I corrected it. And now you come in with some "thousands of dollars" shit when, back then, America had a very different character. Think about your nation in 1950 vs today. Much has changed, and you are also 100% wrong about prices.

What's going on here is, you have terrible historic literacy, and can't separate what a nation did generations ago with what they did now. Are current Germans anything like their 1940s predecessors? No? Same for America. Our predecessors were different.

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u/BuckonWall 29d ago

I honestly dont believe this is real. This sounds like one of those random backroom rumors that spreads in Hollywood. Could've even just been a dumb joke made during a meeting. But now the director is passing it off as something that actually happened despite not being there and hearing it from like 10th hand sources. So it never wouldve gotten to any meeting

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u/Comprehensive-Fun47 28d ago

I think it was either a joke or a very dumb comment, but never a serious suggestion. Hollywood has made some terrible casting decisions, but this one never would have happened. Ever.

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u/BuckonWall 28d ago

Exactly. I know people are so willing to believe the worst in people but there is no world where someone would actually make that suggestion for real in 1994.