Posted on 11/20/2019 5:36:35 PM PST by EdnaMode
If you were to think of the most out-of-left-field actress to play Harriet Tubman in a movie, you still wouldn’t stumble upon the person one executive allegedly suggested.
Harriet, the historical drama based on Tubman’s life released earlier this month, stars Cynthia Erivo. But the film’s screenwriter and producer, Gregory Allen Howard, says when he first started working on the movie in 1994 that one studio executive suggested Julia Roberts to portray the legendary slave turned abolitionist. Yes, that Julia Roberts.
In a Q&A with Allen published earlier this month by Harriet studio Focus Features (and reiterated in an L.A. Times essay published Tuesday), Allen recalled how “the climate in Hollywood … was very different” some 25 years ago.
“I was told how one studio head said in a meeting, ‘This script is fantastic. Let’s get Julia Roberts to play Harriet Tubman,'” Allen explained. “When someone pointed out that Roberts couldn’t be Harriet, the executive responded, ‘It was so long ago. No one is going to know the difference.'”
Thankfully, for everyone involved, Roberts was not cast as Tubman. Decades later, the film has become a reality, which Allen said is thanks to two groundbreaking films that changed the game for representation. “When 12 Years a Slave became a hit and did a couple hundred million dollars worldwide, I told my agent, ‘You can’t say this kind of story won’t make money now.’ Then Black Panther really blew the doors open,” Allen said.
The writer, who’s also behind acclaimed movies Remember the Titans and Ali, also discussed why he chose Erivo, an African British actress, to play an African American activist.
“I first saw her when the other producers flew me to New York to see her in The Color Purple,” Allen said. “As soon as she opened her mouth, I thought, ‘Yes, that’s Harriet.’ Afterwards I emailed the other producers, ‘That’s Harriet. She’s a little stick of dynamite.'”
Tubman’s story has long been in various stages of development in Hollywood; Viola Davis was set to produce and star in such a biopic at one point. The new movie, directed by Kasi Lemmons, also stars Leslie Odom Jr., Joe Alwyn, and Janelle Monae.
Don’t be silly.
Everyone knows that every single house, everywhere, with a lawn jockey in the yard was part of the underground railroad.
/I read it on the internet
:)
Did this come from The Onion?
It's "common knowledge" locally that a "free black man" once owned a famous Revolutionary War/French & Indian war/Civil war very important fort nearby.
However, the only existing photo of him and his whole black family, are disturbingly pale for "black people".
Yet the legend lives on.
Most historical “facts” in U.S. history are utter B.S. and are only meant to revise/distort/fake a true event and make people feel good. The liberals are constantly doing this whitewash and if they can’t change history,they eliminate it.
That would have been casting against type. I wouldn’t believe it. I just can’t see Ms. Roberts playing a Christian conservative gun-toting second-amendment supporting Republican war hero.
When they make the movie about Michelle Obama, maybe they can get Dwayne Johnson to play the part. Same body style, same size, same muscles, same looks.
Just find somebody who actually looks like Harriet Tubman?
Ain’t nobody got time for dat.
her and Ralph Northam can both audition for the role...
-PJ
Speaking of “Roots”, that book and mini-series was a total fraud. It was known to be a fraud and yet it was treated as if it was sacred. Alex Haley called, the greatest genealogist when he wasn’t even equal to amateurs.
Some of the characters were real but they were not kin to Haley and not who they were portrayed to be.
The media still treats it as sacred and most Americans don’t know the truth.
The Harriet Tubman story says she made 19 trips and rescued approximately 300 slaves. At the Tubman Museum in downtown Cambridge, MD they say around 90. I guess the true number is somewhere between. There is also a large new Tubman Center out in the country on land where it is believed she was a slave.
Should she decline the role if it was just to be presented as a radio drama or “book on tape”?
Coline is a kunt
I’ll take “Things that never happened” for $500 Alex.
Did Julia put on some weight in all the wrong places and become a total frump?
Hey! Uncle Bernie!
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