Russell Crowe has angrily denied claims that he had a disastrous audition for the romantic comedy My Best Friend’s Wedding.
Back in February, director PJ Hogan sat down with Vulture to discuss the 90s rom-com in honour of its its 25th anniversary.
During the conversation, PJ claimed he had originally eyed Russell to play Julia Roberts’ love interest in the movie.
“My first choice was actually Russell Crowe,” the filmmaker claimed. “Russell was, I thought, probably the most amazing actor I had ever encountered. I kind of knew Russell was going to be a really big star.”
“Julia had casting approval. No one was getting in this movie if Julia didn’t approve,” he continued, going on to say that Russell and Julia then had a table-read of the script together to see if they had on-screen chemistry.”
However, according to PJ, things didn’t go well.
He said: “I don’t know what went wrong. It was one of the worst table reads I’ve ever experienced. Russell was seated opposite Julia. He gripped that script, and he stared at that script, and he didn’t look at her once.
“He read every line in a monotone. At one point, Julia was literally leaning over the table, staring, like, inches from Russell’s face, trying to make eye contact. And he wouldn’t look at her.
“At the end of the reading, Russell came up to me and said, ‘I thought that went pretty well’. And then I knew: Russell was not going to be in My Best Friend’s Wedding.”
More than eight months after the original interview’s publication, Russell hit back on Twitter, claiming the story was, in fact, “pure imagination on behalf of this director”.
“I did not audition for this film. I have never done a table read with the actress mentioned,” he insisted. “Would be funny if it wasn’t so pointless.”
Dermot Mulroney ultimately landed the part of Michael, with PJ revealing in his Vulture interview that Matthew McConaughey and Edward Burns were also in the running for the role.
He also shared that Friends actor Matthew Perry – who shared the screen with Julia in a memorable episode of the hit sitcom, and briefly dated her in real life – was also considered, but didn’t land the job as PJ “didn’t want them to break up while shooting”.
This year saw Julia Roberts returning to the romantic comedy genre alongside George Clooney in Ticket To Paradise, in which the two Oscar winners play a pair of feuding exes.