Why Bill Pullman was desperate to quit ‘While You Were Sleeping’

Bill Pullman‘s turn in the 1995 hit rom-com “While You Were Sleeping” may have been iconic, but he was desperate to get out of it pre-production.

The film’s producer, Jonathan Glickman, revealed that the “Casper” alum, 70, was not allowed to quit the movie — because he’d just abandoned a previous project.

According to Glickman, the initial screenplay was a dumpster fire, having gone through many rounds of edits and even a screenwriter change.

“We went to Chicago and we did a read-through, a table read of the script,” Glickman said on the “Hollywood Gold” podcast. “And the script was kind of a cut-and-paste of the stuff that the original guys had written and the new person had written.

“And then Jon [Turteltaub, the director], I think, did sort of a polish to make it make sense,” he added.

The former MGM executive recalled that the table read was “one of the worst” of all time.

He continued: “It just tanked. Nothing got a laugh. The energy was dead. We had these incredible professional actors there, real pros — it was painful. And we knew it didn’t work.”

That same day as the table read — during a launch party for the movie — Pullman and co-star Peter Gallagher asked Glickman about reversing their roles in an effort to fix the storyline.

“The O.C.” actor, 68, portrayed Pullman’s character’s sibling in the film.

“While You Were Sleeping” followed Sandra Bullock as Lucy, while Pullman appeared as Jack, the brother of a man whose life she saves on a Chicago train.

Gallagher starred as Peter, the man who Lucy saved from the accident.

“Bill Pullman said — he had just quit a movie that he was making before — said his agent said he wasn’t allowed to quit another movie, otherwise he would quit this movie,” Glickman recalled.

However, at one point, the original writers were re-hired and changed the script again.

The feature became an instant success, grossing $182 million at the box office.