It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Richard Gere playing the stoic Edward Lewis in “Pretty Woman,” but casting that part took some work. According to Julia Roberts, she and the director, Garry Marshall, couldn’t find an actor that would suit the role, per Entertainment Weekly. “Comedians just wanted to play the part … and it didn’t kind of work,” she recalled. Roberts and Marshall ended up flying to New York to see Gere and upon arriving at his apartment, the late director left the two actors to talk alone. Roberts shared that she begged Gere, “You have to do this movie. If you don’t do this movie, it falls apart and I lose this job. It’d just be terrible!”
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In a previous appearance on “Today,” Gere revealed the moment Roberts was able to convince him to star in “Pretty Woman” (per the New York Daily News). “She takes a piece of paper, a Post-it. She’s writing something and turns it around and pushes it toward me and it said, ‘Please say yes.’ It was so sweet and I said, ‘I just said yes,'” the “Primal Fear” actor shared. Gere initially didn’t want the role because he felt like his character was “just a suit.” However, he and Roberts ended up making magic on the big screen, and years later, he convinced her to reunite with him for another movie.
