A Hollywood Executive Once Suggested Julia Roberts Play Harriet Tubman
There’s no good way to say this, truly, but here it goes: Once upon a time in Hollywood, a studio executive actually suggested Julia Roberts play abolitionist hero Harriet Tubman. Yes, you read that correctly. This surreal revelation comes courtesy of Gregory Allen Howard, the screenwriter and producer of Harriet, the current Tubman biopic starring Tony winner Cynthia Erivo.
Howard first began circulating the project 25 years ago, in 1994. The then president of a studio sub-label said, “This is a great script. Let’s get Julia Roberts to play Harriet Tubman,” Howard wrote in a Los Angeles Times essay this week. Fortunately, Howard continued, “There was a single black person in that studio meeting 25 years ago who told him that Harriet Tubman was a black woman.” The president reportedly replied, “That was so long ago. No one will know that.” Yes, you read that correctly too.
While Julia Roberts’s publicist likely woke up to a real treat of an inbox, Twitter understandably reeled:
Absurd as this casting scheme may be, many pointed out that it’s not that surprising once you consider the bleak history of cis, white actors being cast over actors of color and queer performers in historical roles. Sociologist and author Nancy Wang Yuen cited Angelina Jolie playing the biracial Mariane Pearl in A Mighty Heart, Jake Gyllenhaal as the titular Prince of Persia, and Mike Meyers as the Indian Love Guru, just to name a few (and to say nothing of Scarlett Johansson’s short-lived casting as a trans man in Rub & Tug).
And while it’s not quite the point, there were ripples of empathy for what Roberts might have woken up to on her otherwise peaceful Taos, New Mexico, ranch this morning:
In Howard’s essay, he goes on to say that after the unnamed studio in question commissioned a script that Howard then spent eight months writing, the project was deemed “dead,” and he was encouraged to shop it elsewhere. It wasn’t until two decades later, as Howard—who also wrote Remember the Titans and Ali—saw the success of films like Black Panther and 12 Years a Slave that he started to believe Hollywood was finally ready for his Tubman film.
“It’s no accident that Harriet went into production nine months after the release of Black Panther,” Howard wrote. “As someone who has been in this business for decades, I am enjoying the warmth of the Hollywood climate change, and the diverse stories that are bathing in that sunlight, happy that Harriet’s other journey is now finally complete.”
Originally Appeared on Vogue
