Julia Roberts Debunks Longstanding ‘Pretty Woman’ Rumor Involving Her Feet: ‘That’s Not True’

Julia Roberts Debunks Longstanding ‘Pretty Woman’ Rumor Involving Her Feet: ‘That’s Not True’
Julia Roberts is setting the record straight on a longstanding rumor about her time on the set of Pretty Woman.

The 56-year-old actress answered questions from viewers during Thursday’s episode of Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen. The first question came from a pair of fans who asked Roberts, “Is it true that sometimes [director] Garry Marshall would tickle your feet off camera during Pretty Woman to get you to laugh during a scene?”

“You know, that’s not true,” said the Leave the World Behind star, joking that the fans who posed the question looked “mildly disappointed” at her answer.

“But Garry would do things like this: He would say, ‘Action! Be funny!’ And then I’m just supposed to be laughing or something … I guess you have to know all these people’s names to appreciate this, but he called me the ‘schlumpy girl’ and he would say, ‘If the schlumpy girl married Raul Julia, she’d be Julia Julia!’ ” she recalled, mimicking the late filmmaker’s voice.

“And then our [director of photography] was a man called Chuck Minsky and [Garry] goes, ‘If Chuck married Nastassja Kinski, she’d be Nastassja Kinski Minsky!’ ” Roberts went on.
Pretty Woman has gone down as one of the most beloved romantic comedies of all time since its 1990 release. The story follows a sex worker (played by Roberts) hired by a businessman (Richard Gere) to be his date, with the two eventually falling in love.

The movie ended up being a massive success, earning Roberts an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress and winning her the Golden Globe for best actress in a motion picture – musical or comedy.

But there are movie roles she turned down that also went on to become huge, like the part of Kathleen Kelly in You’ve Got Mail, which eventually went to Meg Ryan, 62.

It’s all full circle though as Roberts told Cohen that Ryan “was supposed to be in [Roberts’ film] Steel Magnolias [but] she was still filming When Harry Met Sally, and so I got that part,” she explained of Shelby, the ill-fated daughter of Sally Field’s character M’Lynn, in the 1989 tearjerker.

“Cate Blanchett was supposed to be in [2004 drama] Closer, but she got pregnant, so I got that part,” Roberts added of the role of Anna, which she played opposite Natalie Portman, Clive Owen and Jude Law. “I’ve lucked into some good stuff,” she said.
Marshall died in 2016 at age 81, of complications from pneumonia following a stroke. Following his death, Roberts spoke out about the loss and how he’d forever hold a place in her heart.

“To know Garry Marshall was to love him,” she told PEOPLE exclusively at the time. “And I was luckier than most to have loved him for my entire adult life and luckier still to have been loved by him because his love was unconditional, inexhaustible and magical.”

“He taught us to be nice, that life could be simple and sweet and, most importantly, that friends and family were everything,” Roberts said. She added that “his family was everything to him, and it showed in every piece of work he ever did.”

“There is no way to put into words, brief or expounded, how I feel about Garry,” Roberts went on to say. “He held too big a place in my life and in my heart. He was a giant in every way.”

Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen airs Sunday through Thursday at 10 p.m. ET on Bravo.