10 Things You Didn't Know About Pretty Woman, Which Came Out 31 Years Ago Today

Reynolds was initially offered the role of Edward Lewis, played by Richard Gere. When asked by Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live why he turned it down, he said simply, "Because I'm an idiot." 

When Disney first presented the script to director Garry Marshall and asked him to lighten it (without taking out the prostitution), the film was called 3000 – the price of one night with Vivian.

One of the movie's most memorable scenes came when Gere's character presented a necklace to Vivian (Julia Roberts), and then, as many people know, Gere went off-script and snapped it shut – causing Roberts to laugh.

But what most people don't know is that director Garry Marshall engineered the moment to keep Roberts on her toes. He told USA Today, "She was young and went out and had fun. Sometimes she came in tired and sometimes we had to wake her up."

In the original script, Vivian was addicted to cocaine. But it was ultimately decided that her career choice already provided the movie with sufficient edge.

The server who grabbed the flying escargot that Vivian flung across the room during a fancy dinner out with Edward and said, "It happens all the time," pops up in another movie. Marshall cast the actor to say that same line in The Princess Diaries, which he directed years later.

On a press tour for his 2012 film Arbitrage, Richard Gere hated on the 1990 film, claiming not to remember it. "People ask me about that movie, but I've forgotten it," he told Woman's Day in Australia. "That was a silly romantic comedy." (He's since had kinder things to say.)

Despite Gere's disparaging comments toward the film, he's also recognized that without that role, he may have never continued doing rom-coms. (Can you imagine a world with no Runaway Bride? We don't want to.)

"I never thought that I would be able to do a film like that. I didn't think I had the skill set for that. I'm a pretty intense guy," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "It wasn't particularly easy for me to be that lighthearted, basically."

Marshall, in his memoir My Happy Days in Hollywood, wrote about including his family in the vast majority of his projects, though not necessarily rewarding them with the juiciest roles. (His dad oversaw payroll for The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement and his sister is the late actress/director Penny Marshall.) In Pretty Woman, his son played a drug-dealing skateboarder.

When the star first met with director Marshall, the first thing she said was, "I won't be naked."

Yep, it was the first movie that the beloved Simpsons voice actor had any lines in, he told The A.V. Club. (Azaria played a detective.)