With Fairly Lady, Notting Hill, and My Greatest Buddy’s Wedding ceremony, Julia Roberts has starred in a number of the finest romantic comedies of all time. However as destiny would have it, she may have added one other to her spectacular roster: 1998’s You’ve Got Mail, reverse Tom Hanks.
Whereas selling her newest movie, the psychological thriller Depart the World Behind, on Thursday’s episode of Watch What Occurs Dwell with Andy Cohen, Roberts was requested to mirror on any roles she regretted turning down. As an alternative, the Oscar winner shifted the query to share two films she handed on that “possibly wouldn’t have been as nice and fantastic” along with her in them.
One was 1992’s The Final of the Mohicans, starring Daniel Day-Lewis. The opposite? Meg Ryan’s half as hopelessly romantic bookshop proprietor Kathleen Kelly in You’ve Got Mail. As an alternative of Roberts, who went on to star with Hanks in 2007’s Charlie Wilson’s Warfare and 2011’s Larry Crowne, Ryan reunited along with her Sleepless in Seattle love curiosity. That very same 12 months, Roberts opted to co-headline the home tearjerker Stepmom alongside Susan Sarandon.
Practically a decade prior, it was Ryan who was initially forged in 1989’s Metal Magnolias in the function of Shelby, who relies on screenwriter and playwright Robert Harling’s sister, Susan. “The day after we forged her, she got here to us in tears and mentioned, ‘I’m sorry, however I simply acquired supplied this movie, and I’ll be a number one girl with Billy Crystal…’” Harling recalled final 12 months, “so you realize we mentioned, in fact, go make When Harry Met Sally.”
It was Sally Discipline, who performs Shelby’s mom M’Lynn in the movie, who recommended producers meet with Roberts, in line with Harling. “Sally mentioned, ‘you realize there’s this woman and she or he’s been off making some film a few pizza. She’s Eric Roberts’s sister,” he instructed Southern Residing, referencing her breakout function in 1988’s Mystic Pizza. “We introduced her in, and she or he was Julia Roberts, so she was magic. She simply walked into the room and lit it up, and I believed, that’s my sister.”
Roberts additionally talked about the Metal Magnolias change, which helped earn her the primary of 4 Academy Award nominations, on WWHL. She famous that she additionally almost missed out on her earliest venture with the late filmmaker Mike Nichols. “Cate Blanchett was speculated to be in Nearer, however she acquired pregnant, so then I acquired that half,” Roberts mentioned of the 2004 romantic thriller co-starring Natalie Portman, Jude Legislation, and Clive Owen. “So, I’ve lucked into some good things.”