In a recent interview with Deadline, the Oscar-winning actress admitted she was far from impressed when her agent first pitched the idea of Notting Hill.
“Gosh, I just remember when my agent called me about Notting Hill and I thought, ‘Well, that sounds like the dumbest idea of any movie I could ever do,’” Roberts said.
At the time, the premise didn’t appeal to her at all. The film centers on a world-famous movie star who falls in love with an ordinary London bookshop owner, played by Hugh Grant. For Roberts, the concept felt awkward and unoriginal.
“I’m going to play the world’s biggest movie star and I do what?” she recalled thinking. “And then what happens? This sounds so f---ing stupid.”
Everything changed once Roberts actually read the screenplay by Richard Curtis. What she expected to dismiss quickly turned out to be something special.
“And then I read the script, and I was like, ‘Oh. This is so charming. It’s so funny,’” she said. “Oh, s---.”
Roberts agreed to meet with Curtis, producer Duncan Kenworthy, and director Roger Michell, intending to politely turn the project down. Instead, their warmth and enthusiasm won her over.
“They were just so charming and sweet and fun,” she said. “And I thought, ‘Wow, this is really going to happen.’”
Looking back now, Roberts has nothing but affection for the experience. She praised the cast, the atmosphere on set, and Michell’s direction, crediting him with shaping a film that worked on every level.
“We had a beautiful time doing it,” she said. “It was cast to perfection… at every turn, it succeeded.”
Roberts has previously spoken about her discomfort playing a fictional movie star so close to her real-life fame. In a 2024 conversation with British Vogue, she admitted the role made her uneasy.
“Honestly, one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do was your movie playing a movie actress,” she told Curtis. “I was so uncomfortable… I almost didn’t take the part because it just seemed so awkward.”
In her Deadline interview, Roberts also reflected on comedy and the craft behind making people laugh, recalling advice from her longtime collaborator Garry Marshall, who directed her in Pretty Woman and Runaway Bride.
“He would always say that a joke is in three parts, like a drum beat,” she said.
For Roberts, though, the ultimate reward of comedy is simple. “The joy of life is making people laugh for me,” she added. “Especially my husband — if I can make him really laugh, then it just fills me up.”
More than two decades later, Notting Hill remains a classic — and a reminder that even the most iconic movies sometimes begin with serious doubt.
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