Richard E. Grant: 'Julianne Moore was fired from Can You Ever Forgive Me? over fat suit comment'

Julianne Moore was fired from Can You Ever Forgive Me? because she wanted to wear a fat suit and fake nose to play late writer Lee Israel, according to Richard E. Grant.

Melissa McCarthy finally won the role in the critically-acclaimed film about the biographer who turned to forging letters from literary heavyweights to earn a living, but Moore was originally on board until she fell out with co-writer Nicole Holofcener, who was the film's director at the time.

Oscar winner Julianne recently opened up about the drama during an appearance on talk show Watch What Happens Live, revealing, "Nicole fired me. I think she didn’t like what I was doing."

Holofcener and Marielle Heller, who took over as director, have refused to address Moore's departure from the project, and McCarthy has vowed never to talk about it, but Grant, who landed his first Oscar nomination for his role as Jack Hock in the movie, has revealed it was all about The Hours star's take on Israel.

Speaking at an Advertising Week Europe event in London, the Brit said, "The original cast was going to be directed by Bob Balaban with Helena Bonham Carter and Sam Rockwell playing my part.

"Fast forward 10 years and then it was going to be Julianne Moore and Chris O’Dowd and then Nicole Holofcener, the co-screenwriter, fired Julianne Moore two days before they started shooting over creative differences and then Melissa McCarthy’s husband, who had been in the previous version and still played the same part, gave her the script to read and then she came on board and then I got cast, so it was third time lucky for me, otherwise I wouldn’t be here."

Asked to expand on the "creative differences", Grant added, "Julianne Moore wanted to wear a fat suit and a false nose to play Lee Israel and Nicole Holofcener said, 'You’re not going to do that'."