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Julianne Moore has claimed she was “fired” by the original director of Can You Every Forgive Me? because the director in question did not like her work.
The actor spoke about the experience on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen , while answering a viewer’s question.
Moore was originally supposed to play the main character in the movie, literary forger Lee Israel, while co-writer Nicole Holofcener was meant to direct the film.
In the end, Israel’s role went to Melissa McCarthy and filmmaker Marielle Heller took over the project.
Moore detailed her account of what happened when the initial movie fell apart on Cohen’s set after a viewer asked her why she had decided to “leave” the movie.
Show all 49 1 /49Best films of 2019 (so far) Best films of 2019 (so far) The Favourite “Macabre and fraught though The Favourite gets, this isn’t so much a film about sex or power as it is about plain mischief. It’s a hilarious, buffoonish pleasure, right down to the sets and costume design, and a breeze to spend 120 minutes with.” Christopher Hooton
Fox Searchlight Pictures
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Amazon Studios
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Best films of 2019 (so far) Stan & Ollie “Director Jon S Baird, whose previous film was scabrous Irvine Welsh adaptation Filth, wrings every last drop of pathos he can from his material. This is very much a case of the tears of the clowns.” Geoffrey Macnab
Entertainment One
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Annapurna Pictures
Best films of 2019 (so far) Can You Ever Forgive Me? “Playing Lee Israel, McCarthy manages something very special: she makes a character who is odd, obnoxious, difficult and alcoholic seem lovable and even heroic. The rest of the world is at fault, not Lee.” Geoffrey Macnab
Fox Searchlight Pictures
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Universal Pictures
Best films of 2019 (so far) Velvet Buzzsaw “The golden age of bonkers horror movies is gloriously evoked by Netflix’s latest feature length presentation. Beginning as a satire of the arts world, Velvet Buzzsaw swiftly and gleefully descends into a savage splatter-fest, smeared in paint, viscera and garishly-bright blood.” Ed Power
Netflix
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Annapurna Pictures
Best films of 2019 (so far) All Is True “Written by Ben Elton and directed by its star Kenneth Branagh, the film plays so fast and loose with the playwright’s final years that they needn’t have bothered fitting Branagh with a prosthetic nose – accuracy is clearly not the priority here.” Alexandra Pollard
Sony Pictures Classics
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Warner Bros. Pictures
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Universal Pictures
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Sony Pictures Classics
Best films of 2019 (so far) The White Crow "Ralph Fiennes combines thriller elements with poetic flashbacks to ballet legend Rudolf Nureyev’s childhood and keeps a tight focus on the dancer. When he is most at risk, Nureyev makes decisions with his artistic future more in mind than his personal safety. As Fiennes reminds us again and again in what is his best film yet as a director, the 'white crow' will do anything to put himself in the limelight, the one place he is convinced he belongs."
StudioCanal
Best films of 2019 (so far) Border "Border reverses the perspective taken by most other horror films. In more conventional genre fare, Tina and Vore would be portrayed as malevolent outsiders, but in the world conjured up by director Ali Abbasi, the humans are the monsters. Tina is the innocent – a visionary who hardly understands her own powers but who can sense human venality and corruption wherever it appears."
TriArt Film
Best films of 2019 (so far) Fighting with My Family "Certain scenes feel very trite and predictable but the film gets you in a choke hold early on and won’t let you go. It is far more gripping than its subject matter might suggest. Who ever would believe a story about a wrestling family from Norwich could have quite such heart and resonance?"
James Field
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AP
Best films of 2019 (so far) Avengers: Endgame "The Avengers cycle comes to a rich and very satisfying conclusion with Endgame, surely the most complex and emotional superhero movie in Marvel history. At 181 minutes, this is a veritable epic, but with so many characters and plot strands, it fully warrants its lengthy running time."
AP
Best films of 2019 (so far) Eighth Grade "It’s a rare and precious feeling when a film completely dismantles you. Eighth Grade – the directorial debut of US comedian Bo Burnham – breaks down every delusion we have about ourselves and burrows deep into those parts we’ve made such an effort to lock away. You may cry. You may shudder as every awkward social interaction that’s kept you up at night replays in your head all at once. You may feel the sharp pain associated with those moments when you feel completely isolated from the world. Burnham may have crafted a simple story about the most ordinary of teenage girls, but it speaks with the emotions of a true cinematic epic."
A24
Best films of 2019 (so far) Vox Lux "Natalie Portman gives her fiercest, most memorable performance since Black Swan in Brady Corbet’s enjoyably subversive satire about a troubled pop star whose loss of innocence mirrors the fall from grace of the US itself. Portman’s character, Celeste, is certainly one of the most objectionable figures she has played: a pampered, hard-drinking drug-taking “floozy” whose appearance and high-handed behaviour rekindle memories of Liz Taylor and Joan Crawford at their monstrous worst."
Neon
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A24
Best films of 2019 (so far) Amazing Grace Amazing Grace is as uplifting a film as you will see all year. It’s a concert movie filmed over two nights and featuring Aretha Franklin, the “first lady of soul”, performing gospel standards in a church in Los Angeles in 1972, with a huge backing choir and an enthusiastic congregation.
Neon
Best films of 2019 (so far) Aladdin Disney’s live-action remake of its 1992 animated feature is a rip-roaring, old-fashioned matinee-style spectacle that turns out far better than we had any right to expect.
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
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Annapurna Pictures
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Amazon Studios
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Curzon
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Pixar/Disney
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Curzon Artificial Eye
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A24
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AP
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Warner Brothers
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AP
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Republic Film Distribution
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Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
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A24
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Pathé
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20th Century Fox
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Studio Canal
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Neon/Vice
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A24
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Netflix
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AP
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Best films of 2019 (so far) The Report Adam Driver plays Jones, Annette Bening Senator Feinstein, and director Scott Z Burns captures the events in a cold, rigorously factual, and largely dispassionate manner. But that’s the point. The Report chooses to value the truth over bombastic displays of morality.
AP
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Lionsgate
“I didn’t leave that movie. I was fired,” Moore said.
Pressed by Cohen, she added: “Yeah, yeah. Nicole fired me. I think she didn’t like what I was doing.”
Moore said the split happened in pre-production, after she had started rehearsing.
“I think that [Holofcener’s] idea of what the character was was different than what my idea of the character was, and so she fired me,” Moore said.
She added that she hasn’t watched the film yet because “it’s still kind of painful” but that she “loves” and “worships” McCarthy and is certain she’s “great”.
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The Independent has contacted Holofcener’s production company for comment.
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