WORKING WITH JULIA TURNED PRETTY UGLY!

Freaky starlet cost sei S6M by quitting in preproduction

INSECURE young Julia Roberts quit the lead role in Shakespeare in Love — costing the studio a whopping $6 million, but opened the door for Gwyneth Paltrow to later win an Oscar for the part, according to producer Edward Zwick, who calls the Pretty Woman “a disaster!”

Ironically, Universal Studios only agreed to fund the flick if Roberts, then 24 — who’d just zoomed to stardom in the 1990 hooker rom-com — would take the role of Viola De Lesseps. The studio had already plunked down $6 million for preproduction.

“The mere possibility of having the Pretty Woman wearing a corseted gown got the studio excited enough to cough up the dough,” Zwick says. Roberts was fixated on having Daniel DayLewis play Shakespeare, but he was committed to making In the Name of the Father, spills the movie honcho.