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Emmy- award-winning actor Patricia Arquette wasn’t a total shoo-in to play psychic Allison DuBois in the NBC series Medium. Instead, actor Juliette Lewis was also considered for the role.

But at the time Lewis was essentially blackballed by Hollywood thanks to her reputation of being late or not showing up on set. The real Allison DuBois recently said that while Lewis was briefly in the mix, Arquette was the perfect fit to play her in the series – a role that landed her an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.

Patricia Arquette played a ‘softer version’ in her Emmy award ‘Medium’ role

DuBois said Arquette’s performance in the 1993 film True Romance is what made her think Arquette would be a good fit to play her.

Emmy Award winning actor Patricia Arquette sits across the table from two men in the series 'Medium'
Patricia Arquette, Enrique Murciano | Sonja Flemming/CBS ©2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.

“It was actually our creator’s girlfriend at the time who had suggested Patricia and I wasn’t familiar with her,” DuBois said on the Behind the Velvet Rope with David Yontef podcast. “So he made me go rent, yes rent, blockbuster, True Romance with Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette.”

“So I watched it and she was a bada** in it,” she recalled. “And I thought, OK she knows how to play a scraper, so this will be good. And then when it came out, she was sort of this softer version of me, which is probably best for everybody out there. But yeah, she’s just a sweetheart. Patricia’s honestly one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.”

Why was Juliette Lewis ‘blackballed’ in Hollywood?

DuBois said Lewis’s name was floated but quickly abandoned. “Juliette Lewis was another woman they were considering,” she said. Adding, “I think this is common knowledge. She was sort of blackballed back in the day ’cause she wasn’t showing up to sets or movies and such.”

“So they thought she could be difficult,” DuBois said about Lewis. “And that’s why she was not considered for very long.” 

While Lewis never made the cut, DuBois was glad Arquette played her. “But then Patricia … I’d watch her with Jake [Weber] and I was like, they’ve gotta actually have feelings for each other because there was such chemistry on the show was just insane,” DuBois said about the on-screen romance between her character and her character’s husband.

Patricia Arquette and the entire ‘Medium’ cast were perfect, Allison DuBois says

DuBois thinks the casting for Medium came together perfectly – likely why Arquette was awarded an Emmy for her performance. “It was just beautifully cast,” she said. “Whoever did the casting for Medium is worth platinum in Hollywood because everybody, Jennifer Lawrence played me as a teenager. So I’ve been played by two Academy Award winners, which is amazing.”

She also thinks casting agents nailed it beyond the main cast. The guest stars were incredible too, she thought. “And they had Emma Stone on,” she said about the series. “We had Molly Ringwald, which scratched the itch for my generation. So Jason Priestley played a serial killer. That was kind of interesting to see. And Neve Campbell was in it. And I mean, there were just some really amazing … Angelica Houston. How incredible was she where her daughter was murdered and she turns into a vigilante? I was like, this is amazing.”

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