It seemed like everytime they were together she blew him off. I dunno, I could see how he appealed to her but other than her celebrity-wow factor I don't think she was of any contribution personality-wise.
Did anyone else think the same?
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I actually think this everytime I watch it, first time I think like this is when he is offering her drinks in his house, even if it's a bit weird of him and she just doesn't want a drink, she doesn't have to answer with just "no" how about "No thank you"?
shareI thought the same thing while watching it. Her character was a raving bitch, and it really just seemed like all she did was toy with his heart. I tried to like her, but couldn't get over all the shady things she did to him earlier in the movie.
shareHer profession is an actress, and a famous one at that. Just by going on stereotypes that are associated with being an actress/actor I would say being a "bi-atch" would be the umbrella term that would define it.
shareI thought the portrayal was quite genuine. For someone that famous, she was guarded and skeptical, but still intrigued by William. I'm sure it would be a struggle under those circumstances.
What I do find unbelievable is that she would be that drawn to him in the first place when he essentially gives her nothing to go on. She dropped every possible hint that she was into him and he was clueless. I would have scooped her right up after the "I'm just a girl" line.
Palletizer,
I agree with your assessment of Anna Scott. I think Julia portrayed her character accurately. She is a famous person who is used to mobs of people harassing her and paparazzi attacking her.
I also think she was intrigued by William because he was not "one of the mob" (and he was cute).
I have to disagree with the OP. It's true Anna Scott came off a bit reserved and cold, but you have to remember the module for the film: She is the most famous actress in the WORLD. She's used to media, cameras, dumb questions, annoying autograph hounds (the thief), misconceptions. She is smitten with Will the first time she see's him, but he's smalltown bookstore owner vs. Oscar winner megastar. Plus it's London. They rave for gossip there just like America.
In a way, Will's character is also a unique study. He's gentle but he's also prudish and a bit conservative. The two are sweet together but it's a great script because it escalates the romantic tension.
I was going to agree with JaysonT I thought the OP is taking her character at just face value instead of thinking perhaps she was protecting herself, shy and wary of all the attention of fans as she should be as you see later when the paparazzi show up in front of Will's flat. But then later she screams at Will, very uncalled for and bitchy so maybe to a degree OP was right but JaysonT is right as well.
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Chloe Ben
RIP Heath Andrew Ledger 1979-2008 We Miss You Greatly
Yep. She took William's grandmother's flowers, after all.
shareprudish? conservative? where did you get that from...conservative in the sense of a bit shy and nervous maybe but not in the prudish sense.
shareOf course she's got a whole lot of "bi-atch" in her. Dude. That's part of the point. She's a rich world-famous actress who had compromised all of her values and and sacrificed her personal happiness for fame and fortune, and what did all that get her? Fame and fortune, yes, but no happiness. So she meets William Thacker and it awakens her to what she is missing.
Get the facts first - you can distort them later!share
This right here.
sharetotally agree! I was watching the movie just now and came to see if anyone else thought that too. It seemed to me like she was bored and depressed so she used Hugh Grant...she didn't even tell him she had a boyfriend and she just goes out with him etc. It seemed like she was flattered by the smitten expression he had and his over the top nice gentleman attitude. And then she sleeps with him (which she was begging for) and then blows him off accusing him of trying to sell to the press. What a bitch! If this movie was about a famous guy doing this to a regular girl it would seem like he was taking advantage of her but its somehow ok that a woman does that? O.o
share1. When she's in his flat, saying "no" to every question he asks, the look she's giving him is so bitchy.
2. She invites him to her suite while she's doing magazine interviews and doesn't even tell him. So basically, he can come see her, but he only gets the 5 minutes everyone else does.
3.She was going on dates with this guy all while having a boyfriend. He finds out about the boyfriend on accident. She offers no explanation for this and just lets Will go home sad and lonely.
4. I think we all agree that her reaction to the paparazzi incident was way over the top.
All this was before they stopped seeing each other. She was extremely inconsiderate. Then she comes back and this guy actually wants to be with her. I couldn't believe it. It's one of the main problems with films like this. Women get it in their heads that they can treat men like crap and then come around when they're ready, and the men will drop everything to be with them.
Agreed, Julia Roberts was terrible in this film. Pretty much ruined it for me. A movie star playing a movie star, and failing miserably. The director was at fault for that too I suppose. The rest of the cast was good, though.
shareJust watched the film today, on AMC! It seems that nobody buys the DVD--they catch it on the telly when there's nothing better to do! :D
I think that Anna is definitely and probably became a b*tch and a snob due to her celebrity--people idolizing her. But other celebs don't all do that. She SEEMS shy at the party with William's sister and friends, but is she really shy, or just aloof and boring? Liberalmedia said it best, that she made no effort to sustain a conversation and had NO personality, other than to quote Rita Hayworth after sex with Will, comparing herself to Gilda--as IF!!
Many celebrities are actually quite boring in interviews because they live withing "the Business" and that's it. Those who profit from megastardom are often the least aware, introspective people. They don't think how their actions affect others. Anna certainly wasn't shy when she told Will off and insulted him for the paparazzi showing up, though it wasn't his fault.
Also, when she tells poor Hugh Bonneville, the stockbroker, that she just made $15 million on her last picture, that's hardly "shy". He's trying to be nice and she brags, humiliating him. Something in her makes her selfish and even cruel...that scene when she tells William off, was so awful: Criticizing his clothes and even trashing his bookstore, saying "Come buy a book from the guy who slept with Anna Scott"...BADLY done, to quote Mr. Knightly's words to Emma (though Anna should ASPIRE to be a clueless young ingenue with a big mouth! She's older and thus, much worse. She is so full of herself.
Then there's the scene on the film set, telling the actor that Will, "that guy" is "nothing", and he hears it on the headphones...nasty! I was so glad when he tells her about that later--she shock and embarrassment on her face was priceless, and well-deserved.
Even the (apparently) beloved line, "I'm just a girl..." blah, blah, blah...is nothing but what is known in Hollywood as "movie talk". Carrie Fisher, famed screenwriter, knew it, putting into Meryl Streep's character's rage at Dennis Quaid's cheating loverboy, in "Postcards from the Edge", and a couple other scenes, during which her mother, also an actress, uses "movie talk" to handle real-life arguments. Film actors know how to lift quotes to insert into real situations, and this is all Anna is doing.
And why does she wait until she has tossed Hugh aside, raged at him and humiliated him to come and be nice? And yes, Julia was playing herself, as usual. Her most "moving" scene was when she describes her "sad" life at the dinner, saying that her "Looks will go and she'll be a middle aged woman who can't act". BINGO! Ever see "Eat, Pray, Love"? How prophetic!
The scene in the shop, when she shows up with an original painting as a gift, just reeks of her trying to buy him off, probably the usual way she deals with people after insulting them! I, like several other here, was rooting for Will to drop her completely. The scene was spectacular and should have ended there, or with a lonely, shallow actress flying back to her "great" life.
But NO! That final chase and the news conference was wasted in this film, and if they ever do a remake of "Roman Holiday", should be put into [SPOILER?] the Audrey Hepburn character's news conference after her fling with Gregory Peck (who really IS a journalist!), telling everyone she loves him rather than just waving good-bye.
I think that the premise in "Notting Hill" also was: this is (as one character says...was it Spike?) a "Goddess", and that Will is nuts not to put up with ANYTHING to be with her. Yet he has too much self-respect to do that. That's why the final scene does not "play" at all. It's not believable. If he were a total doormat, then maybe, but not given the character he is. To quote "Comic book Guy": Worst Ending Ever.
She deserves her revenge, and we deserve to die.
Spook 67 spoke for me.
I hate this woman and if Will were my friend I'd tell him to screw her but just because he wants to and can, but not to lose his heart to her, because she's a narcissist and will always hurt him. Can't be trusted.
http://www.amazon.com/Save-Send-Delete-Danusha-Goska/dp/1846949866
Nope, absolutely not. I'm astonished at the number of people in this thread who seem to think she is. As I see it Anna Scott is the worlds most famous actress and subject to intrusive press scrutiny at all times. Every mistake she has ever made is endlessly recycled for the titillation of the feeble minded and she has to be constantly on her guard to try and protect what little privacy she has. She finds herself in love with a normal guy with normal friends and quite bravely opens up to them at the dinner party. Let's not forget that at the end she comes looking for William Thacker and he is the one who initially refuses or as I see it - bottles it.
I don't want to over think this response to what is after all, just a film. But I'm wondering how many contributors above live in the UK with our, quite frankly, contemptible tabloid press.
She's awful! Self-absorbed, mean. She doesn't call him for months. She lets him wait around for her all the time. She was disgusting in the scene in his apartment with paparazzi outside. I think she belonged with the Alec Baldwin character. William should have followed up on his blind date with the Emily Mortimer character - who looked adorable in this film. It would have made a better ending. He tells movie diva Anna to take a hike, and falls for the normal gal.
http://youtu.be/IAISUDbjXj0
I felt that what she said to that actor when William came to see her on the set was what she was really feeling. She felt so awkward....I'm not so sure she was happy to see him at first.
If you listen to her dialogue, pay attention to Anna's reasons, it's pretty clear why she did some of the things she did. But, I have to admit, if I was William, I would've been hurt and very resentful.
shareyes, as they both knew, she had ALL of the "power" in determining if there was going to be a relationship.
in the end she had cried wolf too many times and he simply said his heart could not take any more turndowns, but he was not to know that she had "purged herself" of her "american ways" in the meanwhile.
so we got the climax where he then realizes [with the help of his friends] that she WAS sincere.
http://www.kindleflippages.com/ablog/
Yes she was a total inconsiderate bitch who treated Will like *beep* most of the time.
share"in the end she had cried wolf too many times and he simply said his heart could not take any more turndowns, but he was not to know that she had "purged herself" of her "american ways" in the meanwhile. "
I agree with you 100%. I loved that line he gave her when she came to see him. It was entirely appropriate considering how she had repeatedly treated him and a consequence she deserved. Not entirely sure that she "purged" herself based on her continual previous behavior, but I would like to believe she did. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie.
well by "purged" I was referring to the fact she put her whole career on hold indefinitely without even knowing if she could convince him she HAD finally "flipped over".
so it was quite a demonstration of intent and one nobody knew until she announced it publicly, with no guarantee he would turn up.
http://www.kindleflippages.com/ablog/
I just watched it today after recording it off Sky Movies and I kinda liked her and I kinda got why she did some things but yeah she was kind of a bi-atch tbh. She didn't have to react like that about the paparazzi and she could have told him she had a boyfriend and she could have phoned him if she had wanted to get back together.
real human being and a real hero
that's the point of the boyfriend [and he had to be some type of Hollywood actor], ie she HAD to have someone as part of the American Beauty she existed in.
but when she actually thought about him she says she could not find any reason they should be steppin out [apart from the fan's needs]
it was all part of her purging her soul
turning point was the inscription on the bench and movie ends with HER on same bench
http://www.kindleflippages.com/ablog/
Here's a thought. When she comes to William, begging him for a second chance, you might say that Anna is more real, with herself and with William than ever before.
share