Rebel Wilson the leading lady in her Supreme Court drama
REBEL Wilson’s first week in court resembled a zany Hollywood production as rapping, Matt Damon and Walt Disney all featured in proceedings.
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REBEL Wilson, who says she’s a movie untouchable, was this week the leading lady in Victoria’s Supreme Court.
David Letterman, Matt Lucas and Walt Disney had guest roles. There were cameos too, by Matt Damon, Melissa McCarthy, Kirsten Dunst, Melissa George, Anna Kendrick and Isla Fisher.
But it was most definitely Rebel who stole the show.
Outside court, photographers pounded the pavement for a glimpse of the Hollywood star.
Autograph hunters stopped her as she went through security. Others snapped a quick selfie.
Inside, it was standing room only as fans and curious onlookers filled the tiny courtroom.
Unlike most trials that see crowds dissipate quickly after day one, more and more people are turning out to watch every day.
Yesterday, dozens squished against each other, blocking both entrances to court, for a peek at the trial.
REBEL’S PERSONAL CRUSADE TO UNCOVER MAGAZINE SOURCE
For four days Rebel has stood in the witness box, the star of her very own drama: the self-dubbed “bogan Aussie” who has made it big in Hollywood takes on a magazine publisher in a personal crusade.
Directed by Justice John Dixon, evidence was produced through by QC barristers Matthew Collins and Georgina Schoff.
Rebel says publisher Bauer Media destroyed her career through a series of “toxic” articles that painted her a serial liar.
The publisher says it has done nothing wrong.
In the end it will be for the six women of the jury to decide.
Picked at random as the support cast on day one, they have no lines but their roles will end up being the most important of all.
Rebel held court this week, joking, doing impersonations, rapping, and opening up about her Hollywood life.
MORE: ‘REBEL’S WORLD COLLAPSED’ AFTER ‘LIAR’ ARTICLES
Clips from her hit movies were played, an interview with David Letterman had everyone in the court chuckling, and an entire episode of Julia Zemiro’s Home Delivery was shown for the jury’s benefit.
Home movies, a nostalgic wander through family photo albums and clips from her days on Australian TV, too.
Rebel told the jury how she was related to Walt Disney, by marriage, and had private use of Disneyland as a child.
She told of sharing a home with Matt Lucas (the Little Britain star often confused for her husband), and how she came close to starring alongside Matt Damon.
“I got so close ... I was really upset I didn’t get to be in a scene with Matt Damon,” she said.
She told how she sold an Elwood home and made a tidy profit, about $120,000, to make the move to Los Angeles to try her luck on the big stage.
She gave herself six months to “make it” and if not it would have been back home, perhaps for a career in law (she graduated with a law degree in 2009).
Two days after landing in the US, Rebel was given some advice she took very seriously: “Whatever you do, just don’t say your age.”
“I would say, ‘A lady never tells her age’. Sometimes I would deflect it in slightly different ways, but ‘A true lady never tells’, or just something like that,” she said.
“Hollywood is very ageist.”
After about 30 failed auditions she was offered a bit part in Bridesmaids, a film that would go on to be a global hit.
She was paid just $3500, the legal minimum, but it was a chance at the big time.
“I actually auditioned for the role that Melissa McCarthy got. I was the second choice,” she said.
“But they really liked my audition so much they added me into the script.
“It was a small role. I don’t remember — there might have been about two scripted lines but I was allowed to improvise, luckily, on the day, so I had four little scenes in the movie.
“You’re allowed to add stuff, unless you keep adding stuff and they say, ‘you’re not funny’, you have to shut up, but if the director likes it, you’re allowed to kind of embellish your own role.
“I might have had my one line in the scene but instead of saying one line, I would just, like, talk for about five minutes and they’d keep filming, in the hope I would get more lines in the movie, which is very common.”
It worked — and after some TV spots, Rebel landed her role in Pitch Perfect.
“The day Bridesmaids came out, my agent’s phones were ringing off the hook and within the two weeks of the movie coming out, I’d booked six feature films, one of which was Pitch Perfect.”
Again she was paid just the legal minimum for a lead role, $65,000.
“It wasn’t expected to be a hit. It was made for $14 million, so it wasn’t a huge movie, but ... everyone liked it and it just really grew. In cinemas it was on in Australia for months. The day Pitch Perfect came out, my life really did change.
“All of a sudden there were paparazzi and men in cars outside. I couldn’t go to a supermarket or a shopping mall or anything without people coming up and hugging me.
“People really warmed to my character, Fat Amy, and it was really the day where you go from being able to do things like a normal person would be able to do without being bothered to not being able to do those things,” she said.
“So the movie studio wanted to do a sequel. We won awards. It was very popular with teenagers, especially, and kids.”
How much Rebel was paid for the sequel remains confidential, but it was a lot more.
“I was the breakout star of the first movie, so they definitely wanted me for the second one,” she said.
Then, she says, it all changed. Eight magazine articles stopped her agent’s phone ringing. She went from hot, to not.
It was, in Rebel’s words, an “orchestrated, malicious take-down of me”.
She hasn’t landed a major film role since, and her future prospects are grim, she claims.
Whether that has anything to do with the articles will be a question for the jury.
They’ll get to utter their lines in what will be an epic final scene of Rebel Wilson’s legal blockbuster.