Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks have made two movies together, three, if you count the latter producing the animated feature, The Ant Bully, which featured the former in a voice-only role, but it could have been as many as four had the stars aligned a lot sooner.
Back in the 1990s, it felt as though Roberts was on a mission to work with as many of the industry’s A-list leading men as possible. She made Pretty Woman with Richard Gere, The Pelican Brief with Denzel Washington, Hook with Robin Williams, Michael Collins with Liam Neeson, Conspiracy Theory with Mel Gibson, and Hugh Grant in Notting Hill, while she technically signed on for 2001’s The Mexican opposite Brad Pitt before the turn of the millennium.
However, Hanks remained out of reach until 2007, when they finally united for Charlie Wilson’s War, and again four years later in Larry Crowne, which the two-time Academy Award-winning Philadelphia and Forrest Gump favourite also co-wrote, produced, and directed. It had been a long time coming, and had the dominoes fallen the other way, it would have rewritten rom-com history.
Whenever an actor becomes a superstar from a single role, the first reaction from the studios is to try and cast them in as many similar films as possible. As a result, when Pretty Woman landed Roberts her first Oscar nomination and saw her dubbed ‘America’s Sweetheart’, she was being bombarded with frothy romantic comedies, which ultimately saw her take a two-year sabbatical to avoid being boxed in.
Even though she’d already showcased crackling chemistry with Hanks in Joe Versus the Volcano, Meg Ryan wasn’t at the top of the wish list for Sleepless in Seattle. She was for Nora Ephron, but the folks above her pay grade went to Roberts first, offering her the part of Annie Reed, which she promptly turned down.
“I’d been offered Sleepless in Seattle, but couldn’t do it,” she confirmed, insisting that Ryan and Hanks “are just such a jewel of a fit in that” that it wouldn’t be the same if she played the female lead. Also, she had her reservations about returning to a familiar genre.
“I guess what they did for that moment in time is sort of what Richard and I were doing across town, you know?”
Five years after that, the rom-com’s Holy Trinity of Ephron, Hanks, and Ryan reunited for You’ve Got Mail. Once again, though, the character of Kathleen Kelly was Roberts’ for the taking, but due to her ongoing aversion to re-treading ground that had become all too familiar, not even missing out on the success of Sleepless in Seattle could convince her.
Ironically, Roberts was only cast in Steel Magnolias because scheduling conflicts with When Harry Met Sally meant that Ryan had to drop out as Shelby Eatenton-Latcherie, and the shoe went on the other foot twice within the next half a decade when she declined Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail, allowing Ryan to step in to establish herself and Hanks as rom-com royalty on the same level as Roberts and her Pretty Woman and Runaway Bride co-star, Gere.