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Rosie O’Donnell reveals how she remembered her lines for Sleepless in Seattle

She used a technique Marlon Brando often called on

Sam Moore
Saturday 28 August 2021 00:36 BST
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Rosie O’Donnell has revealed that whilst filming Sleepless in Seattle, her lines were taped to a crew member’s legs as she kept forgetting them.

O’Donnell told Vulture that director Nora Ephron was unhappy that she kept messing up the lines of a monologue and called cut every time she said the wrong words.

During a break in filming, O’Donnell and a crew member figured out a way to make sure she said her lines right: “One of the grips had taped the whole [monologue] on his leg, away from where [Ephron] could see. I sort of looked at his leg and read it. And [Ephron] said, ‘Cut! That was perfect!’”

O’Donnell also said Ephron was very particular about saying the words as written in the script: “I’m doing this whole thing, and she yells, ‘Cut! It was ‘a tree,’ not ‘the tree.’”

She continued: “It was the longest speech I had ever said in a film in my career up to that point. She kept saying ‘cut’ when I wouldn’t get it right.”

In the classic romantic comedy, O’Donnell the best friend of Meg Ryan’s Annie who falls in love with Tom Hanks’s Sam.

(getty)

As well as her role in Sleepless in Seattle, O’Donnell is also known for her stand-up comedy and public feud with former president, Donald Trump.

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