When Tom Hanks met Uma

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/the-bonfire-of-the-vanities-melanie-griffith-secret-plastic-surgery-wild-stories-box-office-bomb-232758708.html

Before De Palma picked Griffith to play Maria, he very nearly cast a young Uma Thurman in the pivotal role. At the time, the then-19-year-old actress was coming off of scene-stealing appearances in Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Stephen Frears’s Dangerous Liaisons when she was asked to audition opposite Hanks for Bonfire. While the actor was skeptical about her youth, De Palma insisted that she’d fit the mold of the “devil’s candy” that Gruber talked about. “Uma’s so beautiful. Like Veronica Lake,” he remarked.

As Salamon recounts, Thurman showed up for the audition looking like a classic Golden Age movie star. De Palma had the two actors perform a scene where Maria seduces Sherman after their accident. Dressed in a revealing outfit, the actress apparently left her normally unflappable co-star — who had recently married his second wife, Rita Wilson — a little hot and bothered. “When she walked in here I was stunned,” Hanks told De Palma after the audition. “She’s quite attractive, almost erotic. She certainly had a sense of play.”

At that point, Thurman seemed to have the role on lock, and De Palma arranged plans for a formal screen test with the pair. But days later, Hanks experienced a change of heart and dragged his heels about acting alongside her again. According to Salamon, he felt that her audition was more suited to a “high school play” as opposed to what Griffith could potentially bring to the role. (Michelle Pfeiffer and Lena Olin were also considered for the part prior to Griffith being cast.)

“I just can’t act with Uma,” he’s quoted as saying, and the book implies that he proceeded to demonstrate that by delivering a sub-par screen test. Rejected by Bonfire, Thurman went on to find stardom in hits like Pulp Fiction and Gattaca. To this day, she and Hanks have yet to act opposite alongside each other onscreen.