Bill Pullman wanted to quit While You Were Sleeping after ‘worst table read of all time’

Classic romcom had a troubled start that nearly drove away leading man

Bill Pullman was close to walking away from While You Were Sleeping after a “painful” table read gave him doubts about the quality of the script.

Now considered a staple of the romantic comedy genre, the 1995 film starred Sandra Bullock as Lucy, a lovelorn transit worker who poses as a comatose commuter’s girlfriend and winds up falling for his brother.

Pullman played Jack, the sardonic but charming brother of the “sleeping” traveller (Peter Gallagher). Together, he and Bullock dazzled the audience with their easy chemistry, and were key in making the film a critical and box office success.

According to film producer Jonathan Glickman, however, there were some teething issues in the pre-production stage after last-minute changes to the screenwriting team.

“We went to Chicago and we did a read-through, a table read of the script,” Glickman explained on Wednesday’s episode (14 February) of the film podcast Hollywood Gold, hosted by Daniela Taplin Lundberg.

“And the script was kind of a cut-and-paste of the stuff that the original guys had written and the new person had written. And then Jon [Turteltaub, the director], I think, did sort of a polish to make it make sense.”

Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman in ‘While You Were Sleeping’ (Hollywood Pictures/Kobal/Shutterstock)

Unfortunately, the cobbled-together script was still uninspiring and the actors struggled to make it work during a read-through.

“We had a table read and it was one of the worst table reads of all time,” he continued. “It just tanked. Nothing got a laugh, The energy was dead. We had these incredible professional actors there, real pros – it was painful. And we knew it didn’t work.”

Pullman was apparently so unimpressed by the script that he wanted to leave the project entirely. He only stayed because he’d walked on his last role before this, and his agent wouldn’t allow it.

Bill Pullman was no fan of the early ‘While You Were Sleeping’ script (Getty Images)

In an attempt to fix the issue, Pullman and Gallagher approached Glickman at a cast party and suggested that they switch their roles.

Glickman recalled: “Bill Pullman said – he had just quit a movie that he was making before – said his agent said he wasn’t allowed to quit another movie, otherwise he would quit this movie.”

Luckily for everyone, the original writers Daniel G Sullivan and Fredric Lebow eventually returned to the project and refreshed the script, forming the foundations of the movie still beloved today.

While You Were Sleeping eventually made $182m at the global box office against an estimated $17m budget.