Viola Davis Calls Julia Roberts Casting As Harriet Tubman ‘Ridiculous’

Viola Davis is responding to the news that a studio executive once suggested Julia Roberts to play abolitionist Harriet Tubman in a movie about her life.

“It happens all of the time [in Hollywood],” Davis, 54, recently told MadameNoire when asked to comment.

“Here’s the thing, simply put: Julia Roberts as Harriet Tubman is ridiculous,” she said. “That barely warrants a response. That’s ridiculous. I understand that the film industry very much is about commerce and money, I get it. But that’s ridiculous.”

Roberts was never involved in the project.

As previously reported, screenwriter Gregory Allen Howard — who co-wrote the screenplay for the Tubman biopic Harriet — wrote a column in the Los Angeles Times. In the column, he revealed that a studio head had suggested Roberts to play the titular role — and appeared not to know that Tubman was a black woman.

“Fortunately, there was a single black person in that studio meeting 25 years ago who told him that Harriet Tubman was a black woman,” Howard wrote. “The president replied, ‘That was so long ago. No one will know that.’”

Davis added that she is “always a little concerned that the people who are questioned about race and diversity and inclusion, are the people in need and not the people in power.”

“You don’t question the people who have not been invited to the party, you question the people who are throwing the party,” she continued. “And the people who are out there who are living in any way, even within this industry, who have the green light vote, who have the power to finance films, who are making those choices to want to cast a Julia Roberts as a Harriet Tubman, this is a better question for them.”

Davis was also set to produce a film about the life of the Tubman. Meanwhile Roberts has yet to respond or address the matter.

Sources close to the current film told HipHollywood exclusively that the studio was at the time was NOT Focus Features who released the film earlier this month. We were also told that the studio was dedicated to making sure that the film honored Tubman’s legacy.