Russell Crowe Denies That He Had a Bad Audition for My Best Friend’s Wedding

Photo: George Pimentel/WireImage

Russell Crowe is not entertained by a claim that he gave a horrible audition for My Best Friend’s Wedding. Director P.J. Hogan, who helmed the 1997 rom-com classic, made the claim in Scott Meslow’s book From Hollywood With Love. In an excerpt published by Vulture in February, Hogan asserted that Crowe was his first choice for the part of Michael, up until the actor gave “one of the worst table reads I’ve ever experienced.” The director alleged that Crowe read every line in a monotone voice and never looked up from the script to make eye contact with Julia Roberts. “At the end of the reading, Russell came up to me and said, ‘I thought that went pretty well,’” Hogan recalled. “And then I knew: Russell was not going to be in My Best Friend’s Wedding.”

Eight months later, Crowe seems to have finally caught wind of this anecdote and asked, à la Nene Leakes, “Now why am I in it?” On Friday, he denied that any part of Hogan’s story was true, tweeting, “Pure imagination on behalf of this director. I did not audition for this film. I have never done a table read with the actress mentioned. Would be funny if it wasn’t so pointless.” In case you’re thinking that he would say this either way, perhaps it’s worth noting that Crowe has proved that he doesn’t mind standing by negatively reviewed work — last year, he essentially told a critic that disliking one of his movies was a personal problem.