Mona Lisa Smile is the story of a free-spirited art teacher convincing a group of students that there’s more to life than marriage.

SUMMARY

The movie Mona Lisa Smile was initially dismissed as an inferior female version of Dead Poets Society.
The filming of the movie was chaotic at times, and none of the actors were quite convinced with the production.
With numerous hiccups that plagued the filming process, the movie failed to make it big at the box office.

Although Mona Lisa Smile was initially dismissed as an inferior female version of Dead Poets Society upon its release, the Julia Roberts-led movie has aged quite gracefully. But it appears that none of the actors were quite convenient with the movie’s production, not even the lead Roberts, per Dominic West, who played the part of Wellesley Italian professor, Bill Dunbar.

Dominic West, who rose to prominence a year before starring in the tragicomedy, thanks to The Wire, recounted the troublesome filming process and the awkward s-x scene with Roberts.
Dominic West and Julia Roberts | Mona Lisa Smile
Dominic West Recalled the Troublesome Production of Mona Lisa Smile

Produced by Julia Roberts‘ agent Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, the filming of Mona Lisa Smile was pretty chaotic at times per Dominic West, as they were often given new scenes to film out of the blue. With no idea what they were filming, it’s reasonable to see why Dominic West and his peers weren’t quite enjoying themselves in the production process.

But things went further south during his s-x scene with Roberts, as she just had tied the knot with cinematographer Daniel Moder, and Moder being the cameraman for the movie only worsened things for West. Per IMDb, he explained,
“The movie didn’t make much sense. We would be given new scenes to film out of the blue which, it transpired, had been written by Julia’s agent, who was doubling as a producer. I don’t know what anyone was doing there. No one seemed to enjoy it. Especially not Julia. She had just got married and just wanted to be off having sex with her husband. Trouble was, she had married the cameraman on the movie. You can’t really relax in a sex scene when the husband is staring right at you.”
Following the numerous hiccups that plagued the filming process, it’s reasonable to see why the end product didn’t exactly turn out as the creators envisioned.

Mona Lisa Smile (2003)
Julia Roberts Took a Huge Payday for Starring in the Financial Failure

Despite having its fair share of issues, its story of the free-spirited art teacher (Roberts) convincing a group of Wellesley students that there’s more to life than marriage has aged a lot better with time. And while the movie failed to make it big at the box office, the Ocean’s Eleven actress, who was the highlight of the movie, took a huge payday home, making a whopping $25 Million per THR.
Julia Roberts
Keeping in mind that she was involved in a string of big hits at the time, including Ocean’s Eleven, it’s not surprising to see why the studios agreed to pay her boatloads of money to bring her on board.