Russell Crowe's My Best Friend's Wedding Table Read Was The Worst, Says Director
The director of My Best Friend's Wedding reveals that Russell Crowe auditioned for the film but didn't get cast after a catastrophic table read with Julia Roberts. Russell Crowe is best known for his roles in films from the early 2000s including Ridley Scott's Gladiator and Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind, both of which earned him Oscar nominations (and a win for Gladiator). More recently, he has appeared as Roger Ailes in the miniseries The Loudest Voice and as Jor-El in the DC Extended Universe. He will also be making his Marvel debut as Zeus in the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder, which is releasing on July 8, 2022.
My Best Friend's Wedding, which ended up casting Dermot Mulroney in the role as Roberts' love interest, premiered on June 20, 1997. It follows Roberts as Jules Potter, a restaurant critic who doesn't realize she is madly in love with her best friend until he announces his engagement. The film also stars Cameron Diaz as her best friend's fiancée and Rupert Everett as her emotionally supportive friend George. The film was a huge success, grossing almost $300 million from its $38 million budget, landing at #6 on the domestic box office chart for the year.
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Vulture shared an excerpt from an interview with My Best Friend's Wedding director P.J. Hogan, which is featured in the new book From Hollywood with Love: The Rise and Fall (and Rise Again) of the Romantic Comedy by Scott Meslow. Hogan revealed that when Russell Crowe auditioned for the film, "it was one of the worst table reads I’ve ever experienced." Crowe severely lacked chemistry with co-star Julia Roberts, who "was literally leaning over the table, staring, like, inches
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