Unflappable Julia Roberts Doesn’T Let A Few Bumps In Her Career, Private Life Get Her Down
If Julia Roberts’ very public life has often seemed like a particularly titillating prime-time television series, there’s a reason for it.
Ever since she became a superstar after portraying the hooker with the heart of gold in “Pretty Woman,” the 32-year old Roberts’ bumpy movie career and often awkward love life have practically screamed out for network treatment.
There’s the Julia-left-Kiefer-at-the-altar-to-run -away-with-Jason-then-married-Lyle soap opera, which kept millions of us entertained for what seems like years.
Then, the why-is-she-making-movies-like-“Mary-Reilly” sideshow.
Next was the Julia’s-back-in-a-big-hit-again-thanks -to-“My-Best-Friend’s-Wedding” circus.
And how about the why-did-she-show-up-at-the-“Notting-Hill ”-premiere-with-underarm-hair controversy?
As the Temptations might put it, it’s all about “The way you do the things you do.”
Roberts, however, sings a different tune.
“This is my chosen profession and I really love it, so the good has always outweighed the bad,” says Roberts of the intense press attention she’s been subjected to ever since her breakthrough in the 1990 mega-hit, “Pretty Woman.”
“Scrutiny is the comments of a stranger who is not willing to say it to your face,” she adds. “So what does that really amount to? Not a lot, really.”
Roberts is in New York for the release of her latest film, “Erin Brockovich,” opening Friday. Dressed in a knit wool purple dress that accentuates every curve of her tall, willowy figure, she’s just given an uproarious performance at a press conference.
Joking, cursing, referring to questioners as “Hon,” speaking straight-forwardly and with intelligence on a variety of topics, Roberts seems like a younger version of Ann Richards, the hugely entertaining former governor of Texas.
It’s a Southern thing. And Roberts, who has never forsaken her Smyrna, Ga., roots, acknowledges it.
Her Southern background “manifests in two ways,” says the star. “Good manners and care taking. I say, `Please, thank you, sir, ma’am.’ I think I’m polite, I love to cook dinner and I keep the toilet scrubbed.
“That is a great quality of being Southern. And it also manifests itself where the `Yes, ma’am,’ can also be `I hear what you’re saying, but I disagree, let me present to you my idea.’ Completely uncensored and putting it out there. For me the idea of being Southern is being very forthright, honest, candid.”
Which makes Roberts the perfect candidate to play the title character in her latest film. Based on a true story, “Erin Brockovich” is about a single mother of three who, while working as a clerk in a small Southern California law office, stumbles upon a case involving a major public utility, contaminated groundwater and a high incidence of cancer in a small desert town.
Brockovich, whose tenacity in pursuing the case ultimately results in the biggest civil penalty ever assessed in a direct-action lawsuit, is nothing if not flamboyant. She uses the “F” word incessantly as a noun, adjective and verb, and seems to shop for her wardrobe in the Frederick’s of Hollywood catalogue: Lots of shorter-than-short skirts, tops that show, as Roberts puts it, “more cleavage then God even thought to give me,” and stiletto-heeled shoes featuring outrageous colors and patterns.
“I have something in my closet that I call a dress,” says Roberts. “And she has something in her closet that I call a dreh. The whole ess part that covers your butt just isn’t there. I enjoyed the ever-flammable gypsiestramps-and-thieves dress I wore. It was all Barbie theater. It was all fabulous.
“My only concern (with the outfits) was that when you take someone who is, by my conservative standards of dressing, provocative, and really puts it out there, you don’t want it to look like a movie contrivance: `Oh, we hired someone with really long legs, so let’s give her the shortest skirts known to mankind.’ You want it to seem authentic.”
Not that Roberts took the part so she could curse like a trucker and shake her tush.
“It was a great character to play, lots of stuff to get to do, so many different facets and sides, and a great story to tell,” says Roberts. “Erin is tenacious, and completely believes in the idea of justice, that good will always prevail. This has been a massive injustice, and there’s no way to make what’s been wrong right. But there’s a way to make people see how much has been made wrong.”
Despite this kind of enthusiasm, Roberts says she “still had an ounce of trepidation (about the project), based on who knows what.” So it sure didn’t hurt when Steven Soderbergh, one of America’s finest filmmakers (“The Limey,” “Out of Sight”), signed on to direct. Or when Roberts discovered that her co-star - playing the lawyer she alternately browbeats and respects - turned out to be the great Albert Finney.
“He always appears to be incredibly relaxed, yet when the time comes he’s really focused,” says Roberts of the British actor who’s been nominated four times for Academy Awards. “It’s one thing to say he’s brilliant, so it’s effortless. But I also think that sells him short; he works hard. And I really loved his lust for life. I expected him to be good. But he was so loving and so kind to everybody. He really engages you as a person.”
If Roberts appears happier and more open these days - she was positively radiant during the press tour - there are a number of reasons why. Roberts has obviously matured since her “Pretty Woman” days - that Julia Roberts “weighed about 20 pounds more and knew about 50 things less,” she says - and has been involved for the past two years in what seems to be a very satisfying relationship with former “Law and Order” star Benjamin Bratt.
In addition, after a string of box-office bombs - “I Love Trouble,” “Mary Reilly,” “Everyone Says I Love You” - that had people questioning her career choices and even her sanity, Roberts has bounced back in hits like “Stepmom,” “Notting Hill” and “Runaway Bride.” She’s also reportedly the highest-paid actress in the business, with a $17 million paycheck for “Notting Hill.”
There’s one other thing: Roberts has been through so much in the past 10 years, she seems to have acquired the wisdom of a much older person. She has learned to live in the blaze of public notoriety. And she has come to recognize how her image is a two-way street, involving how she feels about herself, and how the press feels about her.
“A lot of times people come into an environment, whether it’s a press conference or an interview,” she says, “and the combination of being 20, being shy, combined with whatever perception they’re coming in with - `Oh, I hear she’s really shy, I hear she’s really scared.’ So they see that tenfold. And now people see me in a great movie, people perceive that I have a wonderful personal life - and I do - and they see me in a place where they love to say, `Better than ever, happier than ever.’ So of course I get in a room with 60 people and I project that. Guess what I look like? A beam of light. So people don’t recognize their participation in what you are.”
It seems like a long time coming, but Julia Roberts appears to be what she has been playing onscreen all along - the sexy but sweet allAmerican girl. She’s making the movies she wants to, loves her man madly and has set up a peaceful, happy home life in the small New Mexico town she moved to six years ago.
Ask her how she got from there to here - from the glare of tabloid insanity to the blissful present - and Roberts knows the answer right away.
“The one thing that really helped me in times of great scrutiny,” she says, “is that I was always really clear why I was there. And I always knew my motivations were really pure. Not to say that I’m not immune or that my feelings wouldn’t get hurt - I would think, `What? What? All I wanna do is put on borrowed clothes and do my very best to be whatever person I’m choosing to be.’ So it can be perplexing.
“But if why you’re doing it is always very clear, it doesn’t invade your perimeter.”
PROFILE Julia Roberts
Born: Julie Fiona Roberts in Smyrna, Ga., on Oct. 28, 1967
Parents: Walter (aka Bob), a vacuum-cleaner salesman, actor, writer, died of cancer in 1977; Betty Motes, real-estate agent, actress (divorced from Walter Roberts in 1971)
Siblings: Actor Eric Roberts, actress Lisa Roberts, half-sister Nancy Motes
Education: Attended Campbell High School in Smyrna, Ga.
Film Debut: “Blood Red” with brother Eric, 1986
TV Debut: “The Survivor” episode of NBC’s “Crime Story” series, 1987 First Leading Film Role: “Mystic Pizza,” 1988 Breakthrough Role: “Steel Magnolias,” 1989, Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination Other Films: “Pretty Woman,” 1990, Best Actress Oscar nomination; “Sleeping With the Enemy,” 1991; “Hook,” 1991; “The Player,” 1992; “The Pelican Brief,” 1993; “I Love Trouble,” 1994; “Mary Reilly,” 1996; “Michael Collins,” 1996; “Everyone Says I Love You,” 1996; “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” 1997; “Stepmom,” 1998; “Notting Hill,” 1999; “Runaway Bride,” 1999; “Erin Brockovich,” 2000
Companions: actor Liam Neeson; actor Dylan McDermott, briefly engaged; actor Kiefer Sutherland, scheduled marriage on June 14, 1991, did not take place; Jason Patric; singer Lyle Lovett, married on June 27, 1993, divorced in 1995; actor Daniel Day-Lewis; actor Matthew Perry; hockey player Pat Mannochia; actor Ross Partridge; actor Benjamin Bratt
Goodwill Ambassador: To UNICEF
New York Daily News