Russell Crowe denies bad Julia Roberts chemistry

Last Updated on October 20, 2022

Russell Crowe is hitting back at the rumors he once had a dreadful table read with Julia Roberts for My Best Friend’s Wedding, calling the entire scenario “pure imagination.”

The story stems from the movie’s director, P.J. Hogan, who was quoted in a book published earlier this year called “From Hollywood with Love: The Rise and Fall (and Rise Again) of the Romantic Comedy.” In the passage, Hogan said, “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.’”

The table read couldn’t have gone “pretty well”–or even terribly–as Russell Crowe denies the situation ever happened. The part eventually went to Dermot Mulroney, who must have gotten along swimmingly with Roberts, who had lead cast approval. Russell Crowe has yet to work with Julia Roberts.

Why is Russell Crowe just now responding to Hogan’s claim? Well, we can’t imagine he makes a whole lot of time to read books about rom-coms. Crowe has had the most prolific year of his career since breaking out in Hollywood, ranging from Thor: Love and Thunder to the upcoming Poker Face.

The book itself claims to be “an in-depth celebration of the romantic comedy’s modern golden era and its role in our culture, tracking the genre from its heyday in the ’80s and the ’90s, its unfortunate decline in the 2000s, and its explosive reemergence in the age of streaming…” There is a chapter devoted specifically to My Best Friend’s Wedding.

What do you think about the rumor? How would Russell Crowe have fared in My Best Friend’s Wedding?