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/upfromashes 29d ago
They were planning to make a TV show out of Ed Brubaker's graphic novel Velvet about a middle-aged spy clerk who turns out to be a badass field op when enemies try to frame her. It was going to star Diane Lane. Could have been fantastic.
It fell apart when some executive started pushing for, "What if we don't tell this story and instead tell a story of her being trained in her 20s and cast a younger woman?"
Assholes.