The role that could have changed Julia Roberts' career
It was recently revealed that the American actress was offered a role that could have been very controversial.
The atmosphere in Hollywood has changed over the years and that has been reflected in her various productions both on the small screen and on the big screen. However, 25 years ago things were very different, because according to producer and screenwriter Gregory Allen Howard, in 1994 Julia Roberts was suggested to play Harriet Tubman.
According to Allen, who was in charge of making a script to bring Tubman's life to a tape, it was in that year when a series of rejections of her proposals began. But the most offensive situation was when a white actress was suggested to play the role of an African-American ex-slave.
Allen Howard wrote an article for the Los Angeles Times where he recounted the reunion: “‘This is a great script. Let's get Julia Roberts to play Harriet Tubman," said the then-president of a studio. Fortunately, there was an African-American person at that meeting 25 years ago who told him that Harriet Tubman was a black woman. The president of the production company replied: 'That was a long time ago. No one will know that part. Thus began the epic 25-year journey to bring my Harriet Tubman script to the screen."
The screenwriter confessed to producers John Watson and Pen Densham, founders of the Trilogy Entertainment Group, that one of the reasons he became a screenwriter was to write stories like the activist's, without doing a history lesson.
“I wanted to entertain people, not preach to them. I spent six months researching and writing the first draft of 'Freedom Fire'. I made it as exciting and entertaining as I could, and I portrayed her as an action figure that could inspire those who see this film, ”he recounted.
However, the studio did not agree to make the film, and Howard was forced to find someone to finance his project for more than two decades. But around that time, he was met with a series of canceled dates, racist rejections and closed doors.
“What I realize now is that the movie wasn't going to be made until the environment in Hollywood changed: it had to go through its own climate change. Nobody wants to be an outlier, Hollywood has a herd mentality. There was no pack around the story of a former slave who freed other slaves. All the people I wrote this to, they sent the script, they asked themselves a question: 'How do I sell this story to my boss, to a studio, to my financial partners?' The fear chilled them, "added the producer.
It was in 2013, the year that “12 Slaves” won the Oscar for “Best Picture”, when the doors could be opened a little more, because he found a producer, Debra Martin Chase.
“We partnered up and started fighting, later joined by producer Daniela Taplin Lundberg, and then we kept adding writer/director Kasi Lemmons. We walked the independent path until Focus Features got involved last year. Now the door was open. #OscarsSoWhite, DiversityHollywood and the other pushes and protests for inclusion and diverse storytelling had moved the needle – the climate had changed,” she explained.
Although the start of production still took a couple of years, and it was after “Black Panther” opened the doors once and for all to a new era. And instead of Julia Roberts, it was Cynthia Erivo who played the activist.
"I first saw her when other producers took me to New York to see her in 'The Color Purple' (the musical)," Allen said. "As soon as she opened her mouth, I was like, 'Yeah, that's Harriet. Then I emailed the other producers, 'That's Harriet. She's a little stick of dynamite,'" he recounted.
