Washington: Actor Russell Crowe has responded to a book excerpt published months ago which likely only recently came to the Oscar-winner’s attention.
According to Deadline, in the excerpt from Scott Meslow’s book ‘From Hollywood With Love’ director PJ Hogan says he originally tried to cast Crowe as the film’s titular best friend opposite soon-to-be-Oscar winner Julia Roberts.
However, as per the director, Crowe first, had to be ok’d by Roberts, who had casting approval. So he allegedly set up a table read.
In the book, Hogan said, “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,” he added, reported Deadline.
Responding to these claims, Crowe took to Twitter and stated that he does not remember it that way. In fact, he doesn’t remember it at all.
“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. Would be funny if it wasn’t so pointless,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, Crowe has been busy in Rome, where he recently met with Mayor Roberto Gualtieri and accepted a plaque indicating he is an “ambassador” for Rome in the world, as per Deadline.
