Parker Posey didn’t lose sleep over her “Sleepless in Seattle” role being cut from the final film.
The “Beau Is Afraid” and “Party Girl” icon revealed that she was cast in the Nora Ephron film, with the writer-director later reaching out to assure Posey that her performance was not why she was cut out of the rom-com starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.
“Nora was so supportive,” Posey recalled to Vogue. “She told me I was a ‘gifted comedienne,’ which I’d never been called before.”
Ephron wrote Posey a note apologizing for the final edit; Posey was later cast in Ephron’s “Mixed Nuts” and “You’ve Got Mail,” with a role that Ephron created specifically for her.
“Being on set with Nora was kinda like a cocktail party without the cocktails — it’s still the best catering I’ve ever had on a film set,” Posey said. “She didn’t have a lot to say, which is why everyone really wanted to please her and try to make her laugh.”
Tom Hanks recently praised late filmmaker Ephron, with whom he collaborated on both “Sleepless in Seattle” and “You’ve Got Mail.” Hanks credited Ephron for encouraging his writing career.
“She told me I was a writer when I didn’t realize I was a writer,” Hanks said during the “Q with Tom Power” podcast. “When we first met for ‘Sleepless in Seattle,’ I was a big shot. I had everybody telling me I was a big shot. Nora was very, very patient.”
Hanks suggested changing the dialogue between his character and onscreen son (played by Ross Malinger) during a fight scene on set.
“So here are these two women that are running rehearsals, and I was complaining continuously that they were women and I was a man,” Hanks recalled. “‘Men are not undone by their sons. Oh, boo hoo, my son doesn’t want me to go out. You know what I’d say to the little bastard if I was going out on a date and he tried —’ and I just kept going on, all this kind of stuff. And Nora and Delia would say, ‘Well, what would you say?’ I said, ‘Well, I would say this, la la la.’ And they took that and they put it in the movie.”
He added, “Once the movie came out, I said, ‘Hey, you know, that stuff was pretty funny.’ And Nora said, ‘Well, you wrote that. I said, ‘No, I just said it, then you guys put it in the movie.’ And she said, ‘That’s what writing is!’”
