Molly Ringwald Turned Down Julia Roberts' 'Pretty Woman' Role: 'I Didn't Really Like the Story'
"I felt like there was something icky about it," she told The Guardian in a new interview
Molly Ringwald only had eyes for one movie with the word "pretty" in its title — and it wasn't Pretty Woman!
In a new interview with The Guardian, the Pretty in Pink actress, 55, revealed exactly why she turned down Julia Roberts' eventual role in '90s classic, Pretty Woman.
"Julia Roberts was wonderful in it, but I didn't really like the story," Ringwald told the outlet. "Even then, I felt like there was something icky about it."
The romantic comedy, which followed a sex worker hired by a businessman to be his date, wasn't the only role that Ringwald missed out on or passed on throughout her tenure in Hollywood. As she told the Guardian, she also didn't land roles in The Silence of the Lambs and Working Girl.
"'She really needs to be at that moment where you feel the pain,'" she remembers Working Girl director Mike Nichols saying in the late '80s. "'You have your whole life ahead of you — nobody's going to believe that of you.'"
"I didn't really feel like darker roles were available to me," the actress added of that period in her career. "The ones that I wanted to do, I didn't get. I was too young for certain roles. I was at this weird in-between stage."
But when it comes to Pretty Woman, the actress has never been shy to discuss her decision to turn it down. During a Reddit AMA in 2012, Ringwald was candid about her Pretty Woman pass — which, at the time, she didn't exactly remember as a pass.
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"I think I saw an early draft and it was called $3,000. I don't specifically remember turning it down," she shared. "The script was okay, but I gotta say, Julia Roberts is what makes that movie. It was her part. Every actor hopes for a part that lets them shine like that."
The movie itself, starring now-55-year-old Roberts opposite Richard Gere, ended up being a massive success, earning the actress an Academy Award nomination for best actress and winning her the Golden Globe for best actress in a motion picture – musical or comedy.
In other recent turning-down-roles news, Toni Collette opened up this month about her decision to not star in the iconic Bridget Jones franchise — which, of course, starred Renée Zellweger and marked her first Academy Award nomination in 2002.
But as Collette, 50, explained on Watch What Happens Live, she has no regrets in her career. "I think there are no coincidences. Anything that's meant for you in life is meant to happen. I have no regrets — life happens as it's meant to. But that is true, yeah."
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Collette previously shared in an interview with Yahoo Entertainment that she was offered the starring role in 2001's Bridget Jones's Diary, but ultimately passed on the opportunity because she was "busy" working on the Broadway musical The Wild Party.
"I wasn't available," the Australian actress said. "But sometimes I think about and I think, I don't know, that character's so similar to Muriel [of Muriel's Wedding]. It might've been too close. And I try not to repeat myself."
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