Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Julia Roberts on Heroin!


In a piece about Actors No One Wants to Work With Julia Roberts' name comes up. Death & Taxes says:  Apparently, when she was 23, Julia Roberts was a hot mess on the set of “Hook” in 1991. She fought with director Steven Spielberg, according to the New York Times, which many suspected was her emotional outlet for a “Fellini summer” of drugs followed by a nervous breakdown after splitting with Kiefer Sutherland. People Magazine at the time suggested that all the celebrity visits to the set, which included Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson, Michelle Pfeiffer and Prince, may have been to see if “Tinkerhell,” as crew members nicknamed Roberts, “was as emaciated and emotionally fragile a Tinkerbell as rumor insisted.”

She was a mess all right. I was working on the poster for Hook when Julia Roberts' photos from the set came in, the crew did their best in lighting and camera but she was a toothpick, haggard. The next day someone came to my drawing board and asked for all of the prints with Julia in them, then confiscated the lot. 

Production was shut down on her scenes, I was told, so she could go into recovery, put aside the needle. Reportedly she met Lyle Lovett, a heroin addict, on a flight after her break with Kiefer Sutherland and was strung out come time to shoot Hook. Footage and photos from the set were destroyed to protect her career and the big budget movie. Now I wish I'd kept a copy of those pitiful pictures.

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