Julia Roberts has stunned fans of her hit romantic comedy Pretty Woman by revealing her prostitute character was originally set for a sad ending after turning to drugs.
The actress recently reunited with castmates Richard Gere, Hector Elizondo and Laura San Giacomo and director Garry Marshall to reminisce about the movie on the 25th anniversary of its release, and during the TV chat, which aired on U.S. breakfast show Today on Tuesday (24Mar15), she admitted her character, Vivian, wasn’t destined for a happy ending when she first signed on for the project, about a wealthy businessman who falls in love with a prostitute. She claims the 1990 film was previously titled “3,000”, in reference to the money Gere’s character, Edward, paid Vivian, explaining, “At the end of the original script, Richard’s character threw my character out of the car, threw the money on top of her and drove away and the credits rolled.”
The ending was tweaked once Disney studio bosses took control of the film and recruited Marshall as director, but Gere wasn’t so sure the role of Edward was for him, because he thought the character lacked depth. He says, “There was just nothing. The joke was it was a suit. You could put a suit on a goat and put it out there, and it would work.” He agreed to meet with Roberts to see if they had any chemistry, and he was so taken by the actress, he agreed to sign on after she begged him to take the job. Gere recalls, “We’re getting to know each other. We’re flirty-flirty, nice-nice… And (Marshall) calls up and is kind of like, ‘How’s it going?'” It was then that Roberts handed him the plea on a sticky note: “She turns it around and she pushes it to me, and it said, ‘Please say yes!’. It was so sweet, and I said (to Marshall), ‘I just said yes.'”
