Nicole Kidman Was Rejected For Iconic Rom-Com Role For Not Being 'Talented Enough'

Once upon a time, Nicole Kidman was just a young actor standing in front of a casting director asking to let her star in “Notting Hill.”

But unlike that film’s happily-ever-after ending, she said she was rejected from the role that eventually went to Julia Roberts, who starred opposite Hugh Grant in the now-classic 1999 rom-com.

Kidman finally got to act alongside Grant in the twisty new HBO limited series “The Undoing,” which premiered this month. She revealed their past missed connection in a conversation the pair had with the Marie Claire outlet.

“I really wanted the role that Julia Roberts played in ‘Notting Hill,’” Kidman told a shocked Grant, who responded, “Did you?”

“Yeah, I did! But I wasn’t well-known enough and I wasn’t talented enough,” Kidman somewhat self-deprecatingly said.

“Don’t be a fool,” Grant said in return, with Kidman then expressing her pleasure that their paths “finally aligned.”

The “Big Little Lies” star, however, wasn’t exactly starving for roles at the time. She had appeared in “Practical Magic” and “Eyes Wide Shut” in the late ’90s, and major projects such as “Moulin Rouge” and “The Others” were on the horizon. She also had already won a Golden Globe for playing a small-town TV reporter in the 1995 film “To Die For.”

As for Roberts, portraying the world’s biggest movie star, Anna Scott, in “Notting Hill” who falls for Grant’s bookshop owner would become one of the most beloved performances of her career.

And, according to producer...

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