The actress, who replaces Demi Moore to play feminist Gloria Steinem, doesn't make it to the final cut because the filmmakers say her performance is not needed after all.
- Jan 17, 2013
AceShowbiz - Sarah Jessica Parker won't appear in "Lovelace" after all. Entertainment Weekly breaks the news that SJP, who's expected to play iconic feminist Gloria Steinem, doesn't make it to the final cut of the Linda Lovelace film.
Just a few days before the biopic is screened at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman confirm to EW that Parker's character is not needed after all. Thus, her scenes will end up on the cutting room floor.
The filmmakers explain that the original script ends in 1984, when Lovelace went back to her real name Linda Boreman. During the year, she became an anti-porn activist. However, as the editing process went on, the directors changed their mind and decided that it's better to end the film in 1980, the year before the titular character got affiliated with Steinem.
Epstein and Friedman admit that it was hard to tell Parker that her performance was not needed, especially because the actress has helped filled the shoes that Demi Moore abruptly left last year. "You never want to make that call," says Friedman, to which his partner adds, "But she was a pro."
SJP's casting in "Lovelace" made headline in early 2012 because the "Sex and the City" star replaced Demi Moore who abruptly left the project following her hospitalization in January. Her character, Steinem, was the founder of Ms. Magazine, which published the infamous article "The Real Linda Lovelace" that revealed Lovelace's relationship with her abusive husband Chuck Traynor. She also wrote "Out of Bondage", an introduction for Lovelace's 1986 memoir.
Back in February, Parker said that replacing Moore in the film was a "daunting" task for her. "I obviously conveyed that to the filmmakers [and] that I was aware and I was sorry for the reasons that they had to reach out to me," she said. "Also, of course, the somewhat daunting task of playing somebody with very little time [to prepare], who was obviously such an important person in the women's movement, but also played such a pivotal role in Linda's life."
"Lovelace" is written by Merritt Johnson and Andy Bellin, who penned the script based on Eric Danville's "The Complete Linda Lovelace", a biography published in 2001, a year before Lovelace died. It stars Amanda Seyfried as the titular actress and is also supported by Peter Sarsgaard, Juno Temple, Wes Bentley, James Franco, Sharon Stone and Adam Brody among others.
The drama will be premiered at Sundance this coming Tuesday, January 22.
