Rosie O’Donnell was so hard pressed to remember her lines in “Sleepless in Seattle” that a crew member taped them to his leg for the actor to read during filming.
O’Donnell revealed to Vulture that she was having difficulty with a long monologue in the 1993 romantic comedy — earning the enmity of director Nora Ephron.
“I’m doing this whole thing, and she yells, ‘Cut! It was ‘a tree,’ not ‘the tree,'” O’Donnell recalled Thursday.
In the lengthy monologue, O’Donnell’s character, Becky, recalls getting into a car accident with her husband.
“It was the longest speech I had ever said in a film in my career up to that point,” O’Donnell said. “She kept saying ‘cut’ when I wouldn’t get it right. One of the grips had taped the whole [monologue] on his leg, away from where [Ephron] could see.”
In the hit film, O’Donnell’s character is a friend of Annie, played by Meg Ryan, who falls in love with Tom Hanks’ character Sam after he speaks about losing his wife on a radio show.
O’Donnell read the script off the grip’s leg and finally managed to get it right for the exacting director, who died in 2012.
“Cut!” said Ephron. “That was perfect!”