How Julianna Margulies Went from a ‘Flunked’ ER Audition to Having Her Fate on the Show Reversed Because of George Clooney |

It’s quite miraculous that Julianna Margulies earned her career-launching role on ER, let alone kept it going for six years.
Margulies, 58, played fan favourite nurse Carol Hathaway on the medical drama, and on the November 8 broadcast of The Kelly Clarkson Show, she highlighted how unexpected the events leading up to her appearance were.
She remembers having three auditions on the day of her ER audition, and, thanks to her “hippie, crazy, wonderful mother who was always late,” Margulies has a habit of showing there early.
Around the two-hour mark, Margulies said she was “walking out” when the casting director called her name, and she unwillingly stepped in to read for a recurring position.
“But I was so pissed off that I did it in a disrespectful manner – a little New York rage. “And I knew I failed,” she continued. “As I walked out of the audition, the casting director whispered, ‘Hold on a minute. You’re not right for the role. And I was like, ‘Ya think?’ And he continued, “But you might be right about this head nurse Carol Hathaway, but she dies in the pilot.” But could you come and read for that? So I went back in and read for Hathaway, full of attitude. And I got the role.”
Carol died of a heroin overdose in the original pilot script, according to Margulies, and it was an emotional moment viewed “through George Clooney’s eyes” because Carol was “an old flame” of his character, Doug Ross.
“So suddenly her death seemed really important to the audience watching,” according to her.
Carol’s death was revisited when a test audience watched the episode. “When the character died, the entire audience said, ‘No!'” “Because they love George Clooney so much—who doesn’t?” she replied.
There was one more coincidence in the pilot episode that set up Margulies’ six-season stint on ER, as she explained it to Clarkson: another “confluence of events”
Sherry Stringfield, who played Dr. Susan Lewis, was in the operating room when Margulies’ character arrived on a gurney, but “put her clipboard up to her mouth when she said, ‘She’s braindead.'” “So you don’t see it.”
“So they basically looped different lines saying, ‘She’ll be fine,’ or anything. “And they brought me back to life,” Margulies explained.

The friendship between Margulies and Clooney, 63, remains strong to this day. Margulies told PEOPLE that she had “given him a lot of kudos” for his forthcoming Broadway debut in Good Night, and Good Luck.
“I just contacted him and said, ‘I’m very proud of you. “You don’t have to do this,” she stated. “It’s intimidating to be on Broadway… So I’m incredibly proud of him for choosing a difficult path. It is not easy work, and I am very amazed that he is doing it.