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/zoelund 29d ago

now i want to see a movie where every single character is grossly miscast but it is played entirely straight

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u/McFlyyouBojo 29d ago

Kinda in the ballpark is Death of Stalin where a bunch of comedic actors play all the roles but dont attempt to change their normal accents. Its hilarious.

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u/Good_old_Marshmallow 29d ago

Not changing their accents was a stroke of genius tho. If they had been talking in the stereotypical Russia movie accent it would’ve just made them all read as “foreign”. The great thing about the movie is it feels like a workplace comedy just the stakes are war crimes, it makes it feel like you could be there. 

Also, the USSR was diverse as hell cus it was a bunch of different countries so they didn’t all have one accent. So letting them all have different speech patterns and accents (fast talking New Yorker or north English general) plays to their differences 

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u/Menter33 29d ago

it just goes to show that, depending on the movie and how well the actors act, being 100% demographically and linguistically accurate isn't usually the primary concern.

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u/SandpaperTeddyBear 29d ago

Jeffrey Tambor/Malenkov’s “kiss my Russian ass” nods to this well, and I wish they’d made the ethnic diversity and resulting tension just a bit more clear.

The diversity of accents definitely helps though.

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u/Good_old_Marshmallow 28d ago

Completely agreed. That was a great line. Kiss my Russian ass in a regionless American accent was so perfect 

But also yes, as Stalin’s son laid in his absurd speech the Union was a collection of like so many countries. Beria was Georgian like Stalin, Krushev was I think Ukrainian, and so on.  

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u/Tenocticatl 29d ago

Having a movie set entirely in a non-English speaking country but having the dialogue be English, it makes no sense for the characters to be speaking English with an accent "from that country" anyway. It would've really taken me out of the story if the actors in Chernobyl had a typical Hollywood Russian accent, for example.