11 Behind-the-Scenes Facts You Didn’t Know About Pretty Woman, Including Julia Roberts’ One Condition Before Filming Started

Pretty Woman Was Originally Titled Something Else

J.F. Lawton’s screenplay for the film was initially called 3,000 — the price for a week with Vivian. That was still the title when Disney first presented the script to the late director Garry Marshall, though it was thought to be “too science fiction-y” (per The Hollywood Reporter).

The movie was renamed Pretty Woman, based on Roy Orbison’s song, “Oh, Pretty Woman,” which can be heard while Vivian is shopping and appears on the original motion picture soundtrack.

The Plot Started Off a Lot Darker, Too

In addition to the title change, Garry was expected to lighten up the script. It was always going to be about a sex worker; however, the original story had a more down-on-her-luck leading lady who didn’t get her happily-ever-after after her encounter with a businessman.

Lawton told Vanity Fair in 2015 that the 1987 crime thriller Wall Street inspired him.

“I had heard about it and the whole issue about the financiers who were destroying companies,” Lawton said. “I kind of thought about the idea that one of these people would meet somebody who was affected by what they were doing.”

For Variety’s 2019 “Actors on Actors” video series, Roberts shared the original ending for Vivian in 3,000 during her one-on-one discussion with fellow actress Patricia Arquette.

“[They] threw her out of the car, threw the money on top of her, as memory serves, and just sort of drove away, leaving her in some dirty alley,” Roberts said.

Though she didn’t state if Edward was the one who physically gave Vivian the boot in the original conclusion to the story, it’s a far cry from the end fire escape scene in Pretty Woman where “she rescues him right back.”

Before working on the movie, Roberts met up with a pair of women who frequented a free clinic where Garry’s wife, Barbara Marshall (a former nurse), was volunteering.

In 2019, Barbara told Page Six she appreciated Vivian’s selection of condoms she offers up for use with Edward and how she calls herself “a safety girl,” adding, “I was so proud because I realized that Garry was paying attention to my work and respecting the importance of preventing sexually transmitted diseases.”

Richard Gere and Julia Roberts Were a Producer’s First Choice for the Leads

On the “Pretty Woman” episode of Netflix’s docuseries The Movies That Made Us, producer Gary Goldstein said he immediately wanted to cast Roberts as Vivian based on her performance in 1988’s Mystic Pizza — despite her not being a household name yet. His No. 1 pick for Edward from the jump was Gere, who had starred as a romantic lead in 1980’s American Gigolo and 1982’s An Officer and a Gentleman.

Roberts said “yes,” but Gere initially passed on the movie because of how Edward was characterized. Once the film landed under the Disney umbrella, the company wanted a big star for their female lead.

With the initial darker script, it shouldn’t be a surprise what eventually became a beloved rom-com was almost a Scarface reunion — at least on paper. Michelle Pfeiffer was among the many names being considered for Vivian, while Al Pacino was offered the role of Edward, even reading with Roberts, who had been brought back on board when her star power was on the rise.

Pacino passed on the movie, as did Burt Reynolds. When asked by Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live in 2018 why he turned it down, Reynolds said, “Because I’m an idiot.”

The studio change led to rewrites in the script to make Edward less toxic, causing Gere to reconsider and take a meeting with Garry and Roberts.

In 2015, Gere revealed during a 25th reunion special on Today that a Post-it note Roberts gave him during that meeting sealed the deal.

“So I’m talking to Gary, and she’s [Roberts] on the other side of the desk, and she’s writing something on one of my Post-its,” Gere said. “Then she turns around and puts it down, and I read it, and it says, ‘Please say yes.’ So I said, ‘Gary, I think I just said yes.’ ”

Pretty Woman finally had its leads, ironically, the same two people Goldstein wanted from the start.

Roberts Had One Condition Before Filming

According to the New York Post, when Roberts first met with director Garry about playing Vivian, the first thing she said was, “I won’t be naked.”

The actress was 20 years old when Pretty Woman began filming, turning 21 on set.

Garry recalled the moment in 2016 at the Hollywood, Calif., premiere for Mother’s Day (the fourth big screen collaboration between Garry and Roberts).

“(Julia) remembered shooting Pretty Woman nearby; it was right down the street from the Grauman’s Theatre,” he told USA Today. “It was in an alley near there where we celebrated Julia’s 21st birthday party with a cupcake and a little sip of champagne. And then I said, ‘Let’s go back to work!’ ”

That Necklace Screen Was Unscripted

One of the movie’s most memorable scenes is Edward presenting a necklace to Vivian. He snaps the case shut as she goes to touch the luxurious item, startling Vivian for half a second before she bursts into laughter.

The moment wasn’t in the script — though it was orchestrated by Garry to keep his leading lady on her toes — and Roberts’ full laugh was genuine, providing an authentically light moment for Edward and Vivian before they head out for a night together at the opera.

Garry shared in a summer 2008 issue of DGA Quarterly that he liked to play pranks on all his sets and that the necklace box scene wasn’t his only silly moment during Pretty Woman.

“Kidding around works best for me,” he wrote. “For instance, during Julia’s bubble bath scene in Pretty Woman, when she went under the soapy water for a few moments, Richard Gere, myself and the entire crew disappeared and were gone when she came up. It was just her in a tub on a ghost ship. And I also started a rumor during that scene that I had put goldfish in the bathtub, and everybody, including Julia, was looking for the fish.”

The Opera Scene Is (Fictional) Life Imitating Art

Edward takes Vivian to see La Traviata, Guiseppe Verdi’s Italian opera about a courtesan (Violetta) and the businessman she falls in love with (Alfredo).

With the tuberculosis plot and ultimate fate of Violetta, La Traviata (via English National Opera) is a closer comparison to the Satine-Christian story in Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 film Moulin Rouge!, but the Vivian-Violetta parallel is there in Pretty Woman.

The Garry Marshall Cinematic Universe

In Pretty Woman, a waiter (Allan Kent) catches a flying escargot that Vivian accidentally flings across the room during a fancy dinner with Edward and other businessmen.

“Slippery little suckers,” Vivian says, to which the waiter jokes, “It happens all the time.” (Crisis averted!)

Garry is known for casting the same actors in many of his films (Roberts alone starred in four of his movies), but what’s special about Kent’s repeated appearances is he’s performed this act of kindness and said the same line in multiple films.

In addition to letting Vivian know that her escargot faux pas was okay in Pretty Woman, Kent also plays another waiter in 2001’s The Princess Diaries, reassuring Anne Hathaway’s Mia Thermopolis that “it happens all the time” when she breaks her goblet while tapping it to get people’s attention.

Kent — as a footman in the 2004 sequel The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement — helps Hathaway’s Mia out again, catching a bracelet that flies off her wrist while she’s waving. Once again, he delivers his signature line: “It happens all the time.

Garry Marshall Cast His Son in the Movie

Garry reportedly wrote in his 2012 memoir My Happy Days in Hollywood about including his family in his projects, though not necessarily rewarding them with the juiciest roles (via SFGate). For example, his dad oversaw payroll for The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. However, his sister, the late actress and director Penny Marshall, starred on Laverne & Shirley, which Garry created.

In Pretty Woman, his son Scott played a drug-dealing skateboarder. Niece Tracy Reiner is credited as a “woman at car.”

Family friends fared a bit better. Longtime collaborator and friend Héctor Elizondo appeared in all of Garry’s feature films. Elizondo played hotel manager Barnard “Barney” Thompson in Pretty Woman, earning a 1991 Golden Globe nomination for best performance by an actor in a supporting role in a motion picture.

Richard Gere Gets Asked About Pretty Woman a Lot

While on a press tour for his 2012 film Arbitrage, Gere claimed not to remember Pretty Woman.

“People ask me about that movie, but I’ve forgotten it,” he told Woman’s Day in Australia, per CBS News. “That was a silly romantic comedy.”

During a 2017 episode of Yahoo! Entertainment’s “Role Recall,” Gere explained why he initially passed on doing the film.

“It’s not my kind of movie; it’s not what I was looking for,” he said. “I remember I kept saying, ‘Just put a suit on a goat and put him out there.’ It’s about the suit more than anything else.”

Garry played a big role in getting Gere to do the movie. On a 2024 episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, Gere told host Scott Feinberg of the initial Pretty Woman script and how he told Garry, “Look, I just don’t see a character.”

According to Gere, Garry said, “Let’s you and me find it.”

In that same interview with Feinberg, Gere said of Pretty Woman, “I’m so proud of that movie and proud of the work process that we did to create that movie,” adding, “And I’m not only proud, I’m thankful for that movie because it allowed me to do a lot of other things, too.”

One of those other things was Garry’s 1999 rom-com Runaway Bride — starring opposite former costar Roberts.

Pretty Woman Was a Big Moment for … Hank Azaria?

Hank Azaria told The A.V. Club in a 2011 retrospective of his major and minor roles in film and TV that the first movie he had any lines in was Pretty Woman.

The beloved Simpsons voice actor played a detective investigating the death of a sex worker whose body was in a dumpster.

Pretty Woman Gets a New Life on Broadway

Though Pretty Woman is not a movie musical, per se, it is a music-filled film. Its soundtrack is a collection of pop and rock hits featuring artists such as Orbison (with the title track), David Bowie, Peter Cetera, Natalie Cole and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Roxette’s power ballad, “It Must Have Been Love,” topped the Billboard Hot 100 in June 1990, just a few months after the movie came out.

Go West’s soundtrack entry, “King of Wishful Thinking,” hit No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1990. The song caught people’s attention again in 2018 when Jimmy Fallon and Paul Rudd recreated the Pretty Woman-related music video during an episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

That same year, Pretty Woman was adapted into a stage musical, with original music and lyrics by Grammy winner Bryan Adams and his longtime songwriting partner, Jim Vallance. The plot of the stage show mirrors that of the movie, with its trip to the opera and all.

The production had its world premiere in Chicago in March 2018 before transferring to New York City that August. The show ran for a year with the original Broadway cast starring Samantha Barks as Vivian and Andy Karl as Edward.

Garry — who died from pneumonia at 81 in 2016 — was aware of the stage adaptation and is credited as one of the book writers along with screenwriter Lawton. Roberts and members of Garry’s family attended a dedicated performance of Pretty Woman: The Musical on Aug. 2, 2018, in his honor.

Pretty Woman: The Musical has had several productions in the U.K. and Europe, with U.S. and U.K./Ireland tours as well.