“Hollywood insiders” are claiming that the makers of La La Land passed on Emma Watson for the lead because she was “too demanding.”
La La Land is currently the hottest movie in Hollywood. The original musical is hoovering up awards, including a Best Actress Golden Globe for lead actress Emma Stone. It is even expected to continue its stampede at the Oscars, where it’s up for a record-tying 14 statues.
And Emma Watson could have been enjoying all of it.
It’s undisputed that, at one point, Watson was up for the lead role in the movie. “[I]t’s true there was a moment where Emma Watson and Miles Teller were doing it,” director Damien Chazelle told Uproxx last year. “And neither of those casting things wound up lasting or working out.” That’s not all that surprising. Getting a movie made is difficult, and actors often shift in and out of the picture before the cast is finalized.
Page Six Digs Deeper
However, Page Six has gone a little farther now by claiming that Watson was passed over for the role because she’s too demanding. “Watson was offered the lead female role, but she initially wouldn’t commit,” a “movie insider” told the publication. “Then she began making all these crazy demands, like rehearsals for the film must be done in London — for a film called ‘La La Land!’ They jumped through hoops to make it work with her, but she just didn’t feel the film was right for her.”
"Now both Miles and Emma Watson are raising hell with their agents for not securing the roles for them — even though it was the actors’ fault for being too demanding."
It’s hard to know how much of this is true, and we should probably all keep perspective. After all, one person’s “crazy demands” is another person’s “reasonable attempts to accommodate the movie into my schedule but it wasn’t working out so it’s probably best to drop the project.” Page Six admits that “other sources insist [Watson] stepped away to do Disney’s live-action ‘Beauty and the Beast’ film.”
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That movie, by the way, is coming out on March 17. Even though she wasn’t in La La Land, we’re still going to get an earful of Watson’s singing voice soon enough.