Once upon a time, Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman was just a young actor standing in front of a casting agent asking to let her star in âNotting Hill.â
But unlike that filmâs happily-ever-after ending, she said she was rejected from the role that eventually went to Julia Roberts, who starred opposite Hugh Grant in the now-classic 1999 rom-com.
Kidman finally got to act alongside Grant in the twisty new HBO limited series âThe Undoing,â which premiered this month. She revealed their past missed connection in a conversation the pair had with the Marie Claire outlet.
âI really wanted the role that Julia Roberts played in âNotting Hill,ââ Kidman told a shocked Grant, who responded, âDid you?â
âYeah, I did! But I wasnât well-known enough and I wasnât talented enough,â Kidman somewhat self-deprecatingly said.
âDonât be a fool,â Grant said in return, with Kidman then expressing her pleasure that their paths âfinally aligned.â
The âBig Little Liesâ star, however, wasnât exactly starving for roles at the time. She had appeared in âPractical Magicâ and âEyes Wide Shutâ in the late â90s, and major projects such as âMoulin Rougeâ and âThe Othersâ were on the horizon. She also had already won a Golden Globe for playing a small-town TV reporter in the 1995 film âTo Die For.â
As for Roberts, portraying the worldâs biggest movie star, Anna Scott, in âNotting Hillâ who falls for Grantâs bookshop owner would become one of the most beloved performances of her career.
And, according to producer Duncan Kenworthy, she was the âone and only person we thought ofâ for the part.
âWhenever youâre asked about casting your film ... thereâs always a fiction that whomever you cast was always your first choice, but I have to say that Julia Roberts was the one and only person we thought of for the part of Anna,â he said. âI remember saying to (director Roger Mitchell), âLetâs offer it to Julia.â And Roger said, âWeâll never get her.â So when Juliaâs agent said it was the best romantic comedy she had ever read, I thought that was a good sign.â
In the Marie Claire conversation with Grant, Kidman also revealed that she auditioned for another one of his classic films.
âI think there was something where I think I really wanted a role ... maybe I was gonna do a small role in âLove, Actuallyâ at one point.â
As for other roles Kidman mightâve played in another universe, she turned down starring in âWonder Womanâ as Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons and mother of Princess Diana, due to scheduling conflicts with âBig Little Lies.â
Kidman would go on to win multiple Emmys awards for starring in and producing the HBO series.
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