Amanda Holden has revealed that the new Elton John biopic could have looked a little different, if she’d been successful in her bid to be cast in it.
The Britain’s Got Talent judge discussed her attempts to land a role during her first Heart Radio breakfast show on Monday morning.
She explained: “I was right in the middle of doing something for QVC and I got a call from my people saying, ‘Listen, you need to quickly put yourself on to tape to play Elton John’s mother in the new movie Rocketman’.”
She explained: “So I got the script on my phone and Mikey, my hairdresser, pulled out a brown wig – obviously to put me in disguise and make me look like much more of an actress – and I shoved on this wig and put myself on tape and sent it Dexter Fletcher [the director]. How embarrassing is that?”
Unfortunately, Amanda lost out to Hollywood star Bryce Dallas Howard, who stars alongside Taron Egerton, Richard Madden and Jamie Bell in the movie.
Speaking last month, Bryce opened up about the challenges of playing Elton’s mum, who he was estranged from for nine years.
The film sees Sheila portrayed as often being cruel towards her son, and Bryce told Vanity Fair: “When I first read the script, I was kind of shocked.”
However, after speaking to people who knew Sheila, she changed her mind.
Bryce added: “In honestly every single conversation, it was confirmed to me that, yeah—this was a very dysfunctional relationship, and she was a broken woman.”
Rocketman tells the story of Elton’s early years and rise to fame, and was directed by Dexter, who was brought in to finish the Oscar-winning Freddie Mercury Bohemian Rhapsody when filmmaker Bryan Singer left the project towards the end of production.