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One is America’s 90s golden girl, the other is Britain’s sweetheart but both Julia Roberts and Michelle Keegan were eyeing up the same role.
The project in question is Netflix’s latest adaptation of Harlan Coben’s crime novels, this time it’s Fool Me Once getting the TV treatment, after the rip-roaring success of his thrillers including Stay Close and The Stranger.
The eight-part series follows ex-soldier Maya’s pursuit for answers over her dead husband Joe’s (Richard Armitage) unsolved murder, an investigation that only becomes more perplexing when he appears on her nanny camera alive and well, playing with their daughter.
Maya’s dogged mission was evidently an enticing prospect for acting greats as Notting Hill star Julia, 56, was in talks about playing the role, until Our Girls star Michelle, 36, ultimately landed the part.
Michelle and Absolutely Fabulous legend Dame Joanna Lumley, who plays her mother-in-law Judith, spoke to Metro.co.uk ahead of Fool Me Once’s release and revealed what really happened behind the scenes with Julia.
Almost immediately when asked about the Mona Lisa Smile star’s near casting, Dame Joanna, 77, jumped in with her trademark wit and quipped: ‘Julia was hopeless. She just had to be kicked out.’
Michelle plays a widow Maya who is investigating her husband’s death (Picture: Netflix)
Julia was interested in playing Maya and turning Fool Me Once into a film (Picture: Hogan Media/Shutterstock)
Once the laughter had subsided, Michelle explained that talks with Julia fell through because she wanted to turn Fool Me Once into a film rather than a TV series.
However, given the book is more than 400 pages and features plot twists aplenty it was decided the length of a movie was not sufficient. Nobody wanted to mimic The Irishman, while an episodic format allows the story to unfold properly and in good time.
Michelle recalled: ‘I remember when I first met Harlan, he was saying that they were in talks with Julia because Julia wanted to make it into film. But the book wouldn’t have been a film really, it needed to be a series.’
Dame Joanna plays Michelle’s mother-in-law in the thriller (Picture: Vishal Sharma/Netflix)
Michelle’s character Maya is baffled when her dead husband appears on her nanny camera (Picture: Vishal Sharma/Netflix)
Dame Joanna continued: ‘The book is fat because it’s dense with twists and turns. If you make a film, you’re going to have to drop half of that.
‘And I think that they maybe presented a treatment of the book as a film and I think that it probably didn’t work. But it’s interesting because [Julia] could see the quality of the story and this fascinating central character.’
To prepare for Maya, who worked in the army,Michelle revealed she had to face one of her biggest fears – heights – and fly a helicopter.
Michelle flew a helicopter while filming Fool Me Once, which she described as ‘terrifying’ (Picture: Instagram)
Dame Joanna teased an epic final scene – which she said was ‘unheard of’ in acting (Picture: Getty Images)
‘It was terrifying, absolutely terrifying. I’m scared of heights,’ Michelle recalled.
‘I had been in a helicopter before in a show, but it was a really big military one. And I don’t know why but there’s something about it; you felt safer as it was so big, and you were strapped in and you had a lot of other people with you.
‘Whereas this one, it was just me the pilot, and the cameraman. And that was it. And we had to fly for half an hour.’
Michelle said the pilot sprung the idea of her taking control of the helicopter unexpectedly – while they were all midflight.
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She continued: ‘As we were flying, we were filming at the same time. And halfway through the pilot was like, “Right, you can take control now?” And I was like, “What do you mean?”
‘And he was like, “Well I’m not in control, it’s flying itself, but if you want to move it you can take the stick and you can fly it.”
‘So I actually flew a helicopter.’
Dame Joanna, meanwhile, teased an ‘unheard of’ scene in Fool Me Once, a shoot unlike anything else she had experienced in her career that dates back to the 1970s.
Dame Joanna plays the haughty and absurdly wealthy Judith (Picture: Vishal Sharma/Netflix)
She explained: ‘[The final scene] was a 14-page scene, which is unheard of. Usually when they give you the call sheet [a scene] is one [page] and two-thirds, two [pages] and a quarter or three-quarters of a page, this was plenty more.
‘And it was a biggish cast; there five of us there maybe. Five of us in an enormous room, so it was very, very detailed work.’
Describing the scene as one of her ‘favourites’, Michelle continued: ‘We did it again and again. Normally you break up quite a lot of a big scene like that, but you couldn’t break it up. That scene had to be done in chronological order for it to make sense; for us to get to the emotional peak where we need to be.’
Dame Joanna even revealed the cast and crew consented to breaking their contracts and worked overtime to finish.
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She said: ‘They had to call the hour, which in our business means you have to ask the crew and the cast if they’re prepared to break the contracts and work an extra hour over into midnight. It was midnight or one o’clock when we finished.’
We’re sure the effort was worth it. Consider us intrigued.
Fool Me Once is available to stream on Netflix on New Year’s Day.
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They are both icons.