In a conversation on Pretty Woman’s 35-year-anniversary, Dan Lester, the costume supervisor from the film revealed Richard Gere said no to going nude.
The 1990 film was nothing short of iconic and featured some of the most beloved lines and fabulous outfits that are still applauded today.
Julia Roberts, 57, stars as Vivian Ward, a young prostitute working Hollywood Boulevard who ends up spending the week with rich millionaire Edward Lewis (Gere) after giving him directions.
The film grossed $463 million (£357 million) at the global box office and was Disney’s highest-grossing R-rated movie until 2024 when Deadpool & Wolverine surpassed it.
Thanks to roles in legendary films Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, American Gigolo, Days of Heaven and Primal Fear, the 75-year-old has been a staple of our screens for decades – but this role nearly included a very revealing scene for the actor.
Speaking to Metro, Dan Lester who worked as the costume supervisor on the film, revealed that the actor had a lot of input into his role.
‘Richard was always terrific. Julia’s character was always fully developed, Richards really wasn’t. So he had a lot of input into changing things.
‘The one thing one scene with Richard, is that I remember is there was a bathtub scene and it started out with just Richard in the bath and they wanted him to be nude.
‘And he’s like, “I’m not doing that.” Like, “well, that’s what it says in the script.”
‘He was 45 or something – And he’s like, “this in this movie is not about that. I’m not going to do it. I’m going to be covered, whether it’s bubbles or, you know, or the scenes going to take place outside. I’m not going to be naked in the bath that we’re not doing that.”
‘And he got his way, you know, he was right that isn’t what the movie was about.’
In the film, the actor appears topless in a bath with Julia but avoids any full-frontal scenes that would have exposed anything more than just his upper chest.
Dan also added that the film was originally much darker and didn’t have a happy ending for the pair.
‘The first script was dark,’ he said. ‘It was originally called 3000 because that was the dollar amount.
‘And it was kind of a dark script originally and was rewritten a bunch of times.
‘It wasn’t a fairy tale, he didn’t come back in the end and do all that. It was a different script.’
JF Lawton, a scriptwriter on the film previously told Yahoo: ‘The basic story is very similar, Vivian and Edward make a deal for six days for three thousand dollars, but at the end of those six days Edward doesn’t fall in love with her.
‘Vivian however, kind of imagines she loves him or at least doesn’t want to go back to her old life.’
Describing the rather dramatic and hardly fairytale ending, Lawton added: ‘Edward drives her back to Hollywood Boulevard and they get into an argument, with Edward not understanding why Vivian is so upset. When she won’t get out of the car, Edward tries to pull her out and she starts hitting him.
‘He throws her off and as she is sobbing, he tries to give her the money in an envelope. She won’t take it, and when he puts it on the curb for her, she grabs it and throws it in his face. But as he drives off, she slowly picks the money up from the street.’
In 2024, while chatting to the Awards Chatter podcast, Richard said there was ‘no character’ and felt he was just ‘a suit’ in the initial scripts.
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‘There was no character. I read this thing and I said, “It’s not for me”. To me, it’s just a suit that is there in the movie.’
He was asked to meet the director Garry Marshall – who passed in 2016 – but confessed: ‘I’m uncomfortable because I really don’t want to do this. I wouldn’t mind seeing the movie, but I don’t see myself doing this…’
Fortunately, the actor was convinced by Julia and the director to take part in the movie, and the rest is history.
Metro has reached out to Richard Gere’s representatives for comment.
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