Julia Roberts knows exactly what the scene needs, even if it isn’t easy.
Elsbeth star Carrie Preston recently recalled her time working with Roberts on the 2009 film Duplicity, a decade after they first shared the screen in My Best Friend’s Wedding. Having established they were both Georgia girls, Preston told Jesse Tyler Ferguson on a recent episode of his Dinner’s On Me podcast that the actresses had built up a good working rapport — one that Roberts had designs on (temporarily) blowing up.
“I’m on set doing a very intense scene where Julia Roberts is staring at me wanting me to die because I had slept with her boyfriend. I have to do that cry on cue thing, which, as you know, is a lot of pressure, especially when I don’t know any of the crew,” Preston explained, noting that she only spent a total of “two or three days” shooting her scenes for the Clive Owen co-starring dramedy.
“I saw her earlier in the day. She gave me a big hug and then she said, ‘I’m gonna be mean to you for the rest of the day.’ She gave me a fair warning. She was just like, ‘I’m gonna be mean. I’m just not gonna talk to you for the rest of the day,'” Preston recalled. “And it was exactly what I needed.”
Universal Pictures
Preston explained that you don’t want to be “chumming it up and then have to go and cry.”
The 58-year-old actress remembered, “They call me and they’re like, ‘We’re ready for you, we’re ready to go.’ The cameras are all set up. We hardly rehearsed. Then I just went and sat down and she’s just,” Preston said, mimicking Roberts’ silent intensity, “and I just started thawing. It came. But it was the most high-pressure acting experience I had at that point.”
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Reflecting on Roberts’ powerful pre-shooting gambit, Preston said she didn’t even think that was what I needed” at the time, but realized after that Roberts “graciously” made the gesture more for Preston’s benefit than her own.
In Duplicity, Roberts and Owen play rival spies who fall for one another, but have to keep their relationship secret. Roberts’ Claire Stenwick must keep her true feelings at bay when Preston’s Barbara Bofferd breaks down over sleeping with Owen’s Ray Koval.
Preston and Roberts have not shared the screen since Duplicity, but another of the ensemble cast, Paul Giamatti, reunited with Preston on the Oscar-winning boarding school dramedy from Alexander Payne, The Holdovers.
You can listen to Carrie Preston’s full interview on the Dinner’s On Me podcast above.
