Spielberg Hated Filming $300M Movie with Julia Roberts So Much, He Never Cast Her Again
The actress was going through a difficult time, which had an effect on her behavior.
In Hollywood there are many actors and actresses who do not have the best reputation, but at the same time they are loved by the public for their roles. However, this does not negate the fact that filming next to them can be a real torture for colleagues.
One of these actresses is Julia Roberts, with whom Steven Spielberg once worked and then refused to cast her in any of his following projects.
An adaptation to the popular book by J. M. Barrie, Peter and Wendy, hit the big screen in 1991. At the box office, Hook made an excellent $300 million and became one of the biggest hits of the year. It starred Dustin Hoffman, Robin Williams and Julia Roberts and was directed by Steven Spielberg.
Steven Spielberg and Robin Williams became great friends on the set of the movie. After Hook, Spielberg repeatedly wanted to work with Williams again, but when the opportunity arose, Robin was always unavailable due to other projects. The only minor exception was Artificial Intelligence: AI, where Williams did some voice work.
On the contrary, the director did not like working with Julia Roberts at all, he even admitted that communicating with the actress was the most difficult part of working on the movie, although her acting completely satisfied him.
Roberts played Tinkerbell, but the film crew called her Tinkerhell. The actress was only 23 at the time of filming and was engaged to another actor, Kiefer Sutherland, who at the time was best known for his role in The Lost Boys.
During filming, Roberts discovered that Sutherland had allegedly cheated on her right before their wedding.
Julia almost disrupted the movie’s production by fleeing to Ireland just before the wedding, apparently because she found out about the cheating. The actress hid from everyone for a long time and did not return phone calls.
She returned to the set only after an enraged Spielberg began threatening to fire her and do everything in his power to ensure that her career went down in flames.
Her bad manners on set were attributed to her relationship difficulties, which even Spielberg acknowledged. The director understood the harsh situation in the actress’ life and called it just a bad time to work with Roberts.
Despite the actress’ skillful acting, Spielberg has stated that he is against the idea of ever working with her again.
Source: 60 Minutes