Alicia Silverstone Almost Didn’t Get Her Breakout Role in The Crush

Alicia Silverstone’s big break almost didn’t happen.

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly for their “90s Issue,” the actress, 48, recalled being “so excited” to play Darian (later changed to Adrian) Forester, the lead in Alan Shapiro’s 1993 psychological thriller, The Crush.

“I was so, so excited to get this job. I felt like I was supposed to be Darian,” Silverstone told the outlet. The character’s name change came after a lawsuit was filed claiming that the filmmaker had used the actual name of a woman who allegedly inspired the character.

The film served to be an early, major moment for Silverstone, which seemed unreal considering how much she’d struggled before she got the role. The only credit under her belt was an appearance on The Wonder Years.

Silverstone says she was auditioning “every day,” but found that “I wasn’t getting anything.”

“Then, all of a sudden, I started to get close to everything. They would say, ‘It’s between you and one other girl.’ But that actually was worse. I’d get so close and then be disappointed, where before I didn’t care,” she shared.

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It was getting to her, particularly when it came to auditioning for The Crush.

“They had me back many, many times, and it seemed like I was going to get the part — and then they offered it to someone else,” Silverstone says of auditioning for writer-director Alan Shapiro’s film about a 28-year-old writer who finds himself the object of a 14-year-old girl’s dangerous obsession.

Of her first film, the actress also recalls working with Cary Elwes, who was 14 years her senior.

“I had to kiss the guy from The Princess Bride!” she recalled.

“We had this kiss in the film, and because I was young… I thought that that meant he was my boyfriend now,” Silverstone admits with a laugh. “Not really, but a little bit. I went to his trailer and asked him if that was okay, and he was so kind.”

In a 2013 sitdown with Interview, Silverstone recalled her first day on the set, which was full of highs and lows.

“You’ve never seen anybody smile so much! It just felt like my face was glowing. I thought my first scene ­— when Darian comes home after kissing Nick [Elwes] and gets tucked in by her mom­ — was the worst in the world. I couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t get into character, though they told me it was fine,” she shared.

“After that, I was supposed to do the scene where Darian takes her shirt off, which was a big deal for me, because even though it wasn’t my body, I still had to act like it was,” noting they used a body double.

As far as relating to her character, Silverstone said, “I envied the power that she had,” adding, “She knew exactly what people were thinking and she used it. I’d run away from it.”