Who can forget 2003’s Honey starring Jessica Alba? Some would say that this movie turned the actress into a household name, though it only grossed $62 million at the box office. Still, it was after this film that Jessica landed a string of blockbuster flicks, including 2005’s Fantastic Four, Sin City, Into the Blue, and 2007’s Good Luck Chuck.
Over the years, it’s long been rumored that the role of Honey Daniels, a dance teacher who lands her dream job as a choreographer for hip-hop music videos, was actually intended for another celebrity — Aaliyah. Following her tragic death in 2001, however, the rumor was that casting directors ended up passing the role to Jessica Alba, who left quite the impression following her audition for the movie.
But it turns out that Aaliyah was never approached to be in the movie after all. The film’s director Billie Woodruff has since come forward and cleared up speculation and rumors from the 18-year-old film which everyone thought was supposed to have starred the “4 Page Letter” singer when it was in fact approached to Beyonce.
Aaliyah Was Never Cast, But Beyonce Was Approached
Before Jessica Alba would take on the role of Honey Daniels in the 2003 drama-dance musical, Billie revealed her team had been in contact with Beyonce, who showed great interest in the character and was ready to sign her deal with Universal Studios.
But before signing on the dotted line, Beyonce’s management quickly realized that signing on for the movie would ultimately clash with upcoming tour dates at the time, followed with the fourth and final album with Destiny’s Child, Destiny’s Fulfilled, in 2004.
Not to mention that 2003 was also a busy year for the “Bootylicious” singer, who dropped her debut album, Dangerously in Love, before embarking on a world tour to support the record, which went on to sell over 11 million copies worldwide.
When asked by Rated R&B whether Aaliyah was ever approached to play Honey before casting Jessica for the role, Billie revealed: "That’s incorrect. It was supposed to be Beyoncé. That’s been widely reported but it’s incorrect. She couldn’t do it because of her touring schedule for her first album Dangerously In Love.”
Billie was one of the most recognizable music video directors, having worked with the likes of Toni Braxton, Usher, Britney Spears, R. Kelly, Ray J, Enrique Iglesias, just to name a few.
Before her death in 2001, Aaliyah had also been cast to star as Zee in the Matrix movies, before being replaced by Marvin Gaye’s daughter Nona Gaye.
The “One In A Million” singer-songwriter had already starred in a string of movies right before her demise, including MTV’s Queen of the Damned and 2000’s Romeo Must Die, alongside Jet Li and Isaiah Washington. The action-packed flick made over $90 million at the box office worldwide.
Meanwhile, jumping into character for the role of Honey Daniels was no easy feat for Jessica, who certainly had the body and the looks, but the mother of three says that learning the choreography on top of her lines proved to be quite a challenge at times.
"She tried to kill me," Jessica told The Morning Call in 2003. "She was just doing her job, but if she would have had her way, I would have been rehearsing the moves 20 hours a day. Finally, I had to say, 'Look, I'm beat, I'm sore and I have to be on the set in a few hours and know my lines. Give me a break.”'
While Jessica went on to have quite the career on the big screen, it was after working with director Tim Story on 2005’s Fantastic Four, when she strongly considered quitting acting altogether following a string of harsh words that were said to her on the set of the superhero film.
“I wanted to stop acting,” she told Elle. “(He told me) ‘It looks too real. It looks too painful. Can you be prettier when you cry? Cry pretty, Jessica’. He was like, ‘Don’t do that thing with your face. Just make it flat. We can CGI the tears in.'
“And then it all got me thinking: Am I not good enough? Are my instincts and my emotions not good enough? Do people hate them so much that they don’t want me to be a person? Am I not allowed to be a person in my work? And so I just said, ‘F**k it. I don’t care about this business anymore’.”
Jessica has since launched The Honest Company, an American consumer goods company, which is worth over $1 billion as of October 2017.