She ultimately failed in her efforts.

Way way back at the very beginning of the site, I wrote a blind item about how this A list mostly movie actress was obsessed with this foreign born three named actor who is an Oscar winner/nominee.

She desperately wanted him to co-star with her in a movie and took a studio jet to Europe just to have s *x with him to try and convince him.

She ultimately failed in her efforts.

This week, the director of that movie, confirmed it all.

Julia Roberts

Daniel Day Lewis

Shakespeare in Love
Producer: Ed Zwick

Previously relealed Blind Item: December 28, 2006

This married A++ actress was attached to do a movie but wanted a certain actor to play opposite her. The actor was not interested but our actress thought she could convince him and the studio believed her. The studio chartered a jet and our actress flew 11 hours one way and 12 hours on the return flight. All of this travel for about six hours of alone time with the actor who still did not want to do the movie but had a great deal of fun doing something else. The actress returned home, broke the sad news to the studio, broke off her own involvement in the project and ultimately cost the studio a great deal of money but it was her satisfaction that was most important and so they still do business together.

Julia Roberts
Daniel Day Lewis

‘It Was a Disaster’: Julia Roberts Quit ‘Shakespeare in Love’ After Awful Chemistry Reads and Cost the Studio $6 Million, Says Producer Ed Zwick

Gwyneth Paltrow won the Oscar for best actress thanks to her role in “Shakespeare in Love,” but it was Julia Roberts who was originally courted for the role of Viola de Lesseps. Producer Edward Zwick recently published a first-person essay for Air Mail about the the making of “Shakespeare in Love.” The director behind “Glory” and “Legends of the Fall” championed the film from the beginning, coordinating with Marc Norman on the original script and getting famed playwright Tom Stoppard to come onboard to do a re-write. Zwick also bore witness to Julia Roberts joining and abandoning the project in spectacular fashion.

According to Zwick, Universal Pictures only agreed to put down money for the film when Julia Roberts expressed interest in starring in the lead role. As Zwick wrote, “The mere possibility of having the ‘Pretty Woman’ wearing a corseted gown got the studio excited enough to cough up the dough. Ten weeks later I was back in London, where a xeroxed copy of Stoppard’s first draft was waiting in my fancy hotel room.”

Zwick later traveled to London with Roberts, where the two were heading so that Roberts could perform chemistry reads with several actors being lined up to play William Shakespeare. Zwick said that Roberts became obsessed with casting Daniel Day-Lewis in the role, even though Day-Lewis already told Zwick that he was committed to filming “In the Name of the Father” with his “My Left Foot” director Jim Sheridan.

“He’s brilliant — he’s handsome and intense. And so funny!” Zwick recalled Roberts telling him. “Did you see his performance in ‘A Room with a View?’ He’s done Shakespeare, too. Don’t you think he’d be perfect?…I can get him to do it.”

Zwick said that almost immediately Roberts was asking her assistant “for two dozen roses to be sent to Daniel Day-Lewis, along with a card that read: ‘Be my Romeo.’”

Later, at a dinner with Roberts and Stoppard the night before the chemistry reads, Zwick said Roberts “received a message and leaped to her feet, grabbed her purse, made a quick garbled apology about having forgotten plans to see an old friend, and hurried away.” Roberts then did not show up the next morning for chemistry reads. Zwick said he met with the actor in her hotel room, where “she proceeded to tell me that Daniel was going to do the movie and I should cancel today’s casting.”

Zwick later met in person with Day-Lewis, who once again told him that he was committed to “In the Name of the Father.” Zwick had an assistant break the news to Roberts’ team. Roberts showed up at the chemistry reads the next day and was paired with Ralph Fiennes.

“Even as Ralph did his best to elicit the famous smile, Julia barely acknowledged him,” Zwick said. “I’m not suggesting she was deliberately sabotaging, but it was a disaster nonetheless. I tried to catch Ralph’s eye to apologize as he left but he couldn’t get out of there fast enough. After he was gone, I turned to Julia, awaiting her reaction. ‘He isn’t funny’ is all she said.” – Source