Russell Crowe is denying a claim that his audition to star in My Best Friend’s Wedding went terribly. In fact, he is denying that the audition ever happened at all.
The 1997 romantic comedy starred Julia Roberts as a woman who realises she is in love with her best friend when he gets engaged to somebody else. While the best friend in question was ultimately played by Dermot Mulroney, Crowe was one of the actors who auditioned for the role.
In an excerpt of the book From Hollywood With Love, published in February, the film’s director PJ Hogan said of Crowe’s audition: “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.”
Hogan added: “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.”
Eight months later, Crowe has now retaliated on Twitter, claiming that the audition never happened and that he has never read with Roberts.
“Pure imagination on behalf of this director,” the Oscar winner wrote. “I did not audition for this film. I have never done a table read with the actress mentioned. Would be funny if it wasn’t so pointless.”
The Independent has contacted representatives of PJ Hogan and Julia Roberts for comment.
Other actors in contention for the role were Matthew McConaughey, Edward Burns, and Matthew Perry, who briefly dated Roberts around that time.
Hogan said that Perry didn’t land the role because he “didn’t want them to break up while shooting”.
Crowe can next be seen in the thriller The Georgetown Project, starring as a troubled actor who begins to unravel while shooting a horror film.
