Making a movie can be a challenging experience at the best of times, and not even a star of Julia Roberts‘ calibre has been able to go through her entire career without wallowing in the abject misery that can occasionally come from a difficult production.

Of course, acting is supposed to be a challenge, but there’s a fine line between a tricky performance and a bad time, and Roberts found that out first-hand when making a high-profile picture with one of the biggest and best directors in the business, which came at a moment when her star had never been higher.

When Steven Spielberg rolled cameras for the first time on Hook in February 1991, Roberts was already a star comparable to top-billed talents Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman. Pretty Woman had released less than a year previously and taken the world by storm, with its lead fresh off her first nomination for ‘Best Actress’ at the Academy Awards.

By the time the blockbuster fantasy had wrapped, Roberts and Spielberg barely had a personal or professional relationship to speak of. Word had filtered out from the set that she’d become a difficult presence, with the media dubbing her ‘Tinkerhell’ and running her previously pristine reputation into the ground.

Roberts wasn’t so much upset by the way things were reported but by Spielberg’s refusal to deny or play down the reports. The director confessed that “it was an unfortunate time for us to work together,” which she interpreted as an insult because she “couldn’t believe this person that I knew and trusted was actually hesitating to come to my defence,” going so far as to brand the filmmaker a “turncoat.”

She wasn’t a happy camper, then, and matters were exacerbated by Tinkerbell’s diminutive stature, forcing Roberts to shoot the majority of her scenes alone with nothing but a bluescreen for company. Fortunately, Williams had his own status to maintain as a perpetual spirit-lifter, which came in handy during her darkest moments.

“He was always grossly funny, incredibly funny,” she recalled to Entertainment Weekly of their interactions, which were admittedly fleeting. “I spent 90% of the time on a stage by myself with no other actors anywhere to be seen. It was me, Steven, and the crew because most of the time, I was on bluescreen.”

Williams was there to provide Roberts with “the only time I was ever in the presence of another actor” for the scenes where he’d stand off-camera as Peter Pan to aid their dialogue. It was disheartening, to say the least, with the star lamenting how she “would spend every hour of every day as an actor solo in my room.”

That would be enough to drive anyone up the wall, but Williams was at least able to inject the entire Hook debacle with an all-too-rare ray of light whenever he went out of his way to bring a smile to Roberts’ face.