Read this: Adrianne Palicki looks back on her ill-fated Wonder Woman pilot

Rare is the person whose history is not littered with little heartbreaks. Exes, of course, but also jobs that were loved and lost, beloved homes or apartments. And pets, of course, but let’s not dwell on that because pets live forever. That’s also true of actors, but sometimes their ones-that-got-away take the form of abandoned screenplays, plays that closed before opening—and of course, pilots. Friday Night Lights’ Adrianne Palicki is no exception, and in this lively piece from Entertainment Weekly’s Chancellor Agard, she talks about one of her old flames: Diana Prince.

“It was honestly the scariest thing ever and the best thing ever at the time. Getting to wear that outfit was just a huge dream,” Palicki tells Agard, before pivoting to another huge dream (and a very relatable one): reading an audition scene with Cary Elwes.

“I walk in one day and it’s Cary Elwes. And I’m like, ‘I can’t read with him. He was Wesley. He was the love of my life at one point!’ I was so nervous. Thankfully, he was a shoo-in and we got to work together and I got to hear all of the amazing stories about Princess Bride.”

The inclusion of Elwes in the cast looms large in Palicki’s memory—“If anything, that alone was worth it. That, and wearing the costume”—but it’s not her only lingering thought about David E. Kelley’s 2011 pilot for NBC, which was ultimately passed on by the network. She also remembers being pretty terrified about how the comic book fandom would react to her casting:

“The stans — being one as well — have very strong opinions, and it’s really important, especially in the comic-book community, to win them over. I was very nervous about that—[and] also very beautifully shocked and pleased that people were very supportive of me getting the role, obviously having not seen the show,” she says. “I was lucky enough to have a beautiful writer and my buddy [pilot director] Jeffrey Reiner, who I trust implicitly and is never gonna just settle on a scene if it isn’t perfect. That made me feel much more comfortable. I felt like we were all a team and it wasn’t just me pushing for this.”

Agard did not ask Palicki what she thinks would happen if she were cast as Cleopatra and/or how the internet would react if she made a video of a bunch of famous people singing “Imagine” from inside their luxurious homes. Alas.

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