Watch The ‘Pretty Woman’ Reunion! Turns Out Richard Gere Almost Wasn’t Edward Lewis

It has been 25 years since cult rom-com Pretty Woman was released. The cast Richard Gere, Julia Roberts, Hector Elizondo and Laura San Giacomo and director Garry Marshall reunited on NBC's Todayshow to reveal some never-before-heard secrets about the movie.

The movie was originally called 3,000 and was a much darker production about a prostitute struggling with a drug addiction. Rather than a tale about a well-dressed prince rescuing Vivian from her tower, Julia said: “At the end of the original script, Richard’s character threw my character out of the car, threw the money on top of her, and drove away, and the credits rolled.”

Julia Roberts was to play the lead, but when Disney bought the script she had to win the part back. Julia said she felt lost for a few weeks, but her smile secured her the role once again.

Richard needed a little more persuasion to play Edward Lewis. Gere said: "There was no part. Just nothing. The joke was it was just a suit. You could put a suit on a goat and it would work. So I didn't get it."

But Julia persuaded him to take the part via a Post It. "I remember you sitting across from my desk in my office in my apartment," he recalls. "We're flirty flirty, nice nice, and he calls up and is like 'How's it going?'

"She takes a Post-It and is writing something on it and turns it around and pushes it to me and it said 'please say yes.' It was so sweet and I said [picks up phone] 'I just said yes.' He adds: "We loved each other immediately, so it was a nice thing."

They also share anecdotes from on set. Our favourite is that they bought Vivian's signature red jacket off a "kid they saw on the street." Watch the reunion over on the Today programme...