Julia Roberts originally first choice for ‘Shakespeare in Love’, quit after shitty chemistry tests

With mere days before the Oscars, let’s look back at one of the most undeserving BP winners, 1998’s ‘Shakespeare in Love’.

– Originally the production team, under Universal Studios, wanted Julia Roberts to play Goop’s Oscar-winning role, back in 1992 after her Pretty Woman success. She was totally up for it but wanted Daniel Day-Lewis to be her male lead (she was in London for the following chaos). He turned it down due to commitments to film “In the Name of the Father”
— Julia went so far to tell her assistant “for two dozen roses to be sent to Daniel Day-Lewis, along with a card that read: ‘Be my Romeo.’”
— After Daniel peaced out, Ralph Fiennes did a screen test with Julia, but she ignored his ass and said he wasn’t funny. He was gone.
— She also did screen tests with Hugh Grant, Rupert Graves, Colin Firth, Sean Bean, and Jeremy Northam. She had issues with all of them: one was stiff, another wasn’t romantic, etc (this makes me laugh because of Notting Hill)
— Once Julia did the costume testing, and actual began rehearsals, the production team said she had no ‘magic’, her accent was off and she clearly hadn’t rehearsed a fucking thing
— Julia allegedly freaked out, got insecure or something, and fled the scene, returning back to LA the next day
— She dropped out of the movie, which had already cost $6M JUST for this testing process
— the project was picked up again by Miramax, goop got the role with the younger Fiennes, and unfortunately the rest is history

Source: https://twitter.com/Variety/status/1632884211328614401