While You Were Sleeping Secrets, Sandra Bullock’s Most Fun Film

4. The first choice for Lucy? Meg Ryan. “We pitched it to Meg Ryan’s production company hoping we’d get interest from Meg to star in it, Lebow told Buzzfeed UK. “Her development executive said to us, ‘Firstly, why would Meg want to do this movie if she’s in a coma for most of it? And secondly, you guys are creeps! It’s kind of predatory with this guy telling this comatose woman’s family that he’s engaged to her. Why don’t you flip it around—let the woman be the one fabricating the story. Then it’s no longer predatory, it’s funny.'”

5. Once Ryan passed, “The person who was initially meant to do the movie was Demi Moore,” Lebow revealed. “They couldn’t agree on a contract, so that fell apart.” He also revealed that Julia Roberts passed on the role: “Lots of big actresses passed on it.”

6. While Speed had just come out the year before, WYWS was Sandra Bullock‘s first romantic comedy and was the film that secured her place as one of Hollywood’s top actresses. 

According to Lebow, Bullock reached out to the studio about starring in the film after reading the script on the set of Speed, with Lebow claiming, “Sandra contacted the studio and said it was just the kind of thing she wanted to do, that she could relate to so much of it, especially the loneliness, the importance of family.”