From small town Georgia girl feeling homesick in New York City to Hollywood's leading actress,
Julia Roberts has transformed into the leading lady we all love.
Here's a look at Julia Roberts through the years.
Roberts was born in Smyrna, Georgia on October 28th,
1967. She was the youngest of three children and clearly had acting in
her blood. Her parents were both actors and even ran workshops for writers and actors.
Even though she grew up surrounded by performers, Roberts had a different
childhood dream. She grew up wanting to be a veterinarian, but changed her mind
to acting once she graduated high school. She explained on The Ellen DeGeneres Show,
"I started taking science and biology and realized, wow, that is hard."
When Roberts moved to New York to pursue acting,
it was quite the rude awakening from her small Georgia town. She told CBS This Morning,
"I was 17 when I moved to New York. It was a big difference from Smyrna,
Georgia. I spent a lot of time by myself and I was just lonely, and the city was so fast
and big. And so I would get on the phone with my mom crying, 'I wanna come home.'"
But her mother always told her,
"You stay right where you are. You work this out."
Roberts and her gorgeous red curls hit center stage when she appeared in
Steel Magnolias in 1989 and Pretty Woman in 1990. But in an interview with Vanity Fair,
Roberts admitted that not everyone had been a fan of her or her movies. She candidly revealed
what one of the crew members later told her about Pretty Woman. According to her, the person said,
"I have to take my hat off to you because the film's doing so well. I just thought
Pretty Woman sucked. I thought, who's this girl that's coming in to play this role? She sucked."
"I remember reading something about it in USA Today that said Pretty Woman came
out this weekend and made this much money and I thought, is that a lot of money? Is that good?"
Fortunately for Roberts, there were many who didn't think she sucked at all,
and she quickly became a household name. Roberts attended her first Golden Globes in 1990,
and was clearly a newbie. One InStyle fashion editor said,
"She wore a store-bought suit from Giorgio Armani.
She went in and bought the suit herself, and that's what she wore."
In 1991, Roberts starred as Tinkerbell in Hook. This was also the year when America's sweetheart
got her first taste of falling off the pedestal. Roberts appeared as the feisty fairy with a short
pixie cut — but it was rumors of behind-the-scenes disagreements that got people's attention.
Rumors of diva-like behavior hit the press. In an interview at the time, director Steven Spielberg
was asked about the rumors and did not put them to rest. When asked about the film and Spielberg's
lack of response, Roberts admitted that it was a difficult time. She told Vanity Fair,
"Hand to God: not a thing I read about that was truthful,
and it really hurt my feelings. Because not only did it make me sound mean, but it
was a situation where people who knew the truth talked about it in a way that wasn't untruthful.
I saw that and my eyes popped out of my head. [...] I couldn't believe that this person that I
knew and trusted was actually hesitating to come to my defense. It was a hard lesson to learn."
Things didn't get much easier for Roberts while making the film
I Love Trouble in 1994. Once again, rumors and disagreements threatened to overshadow
her work. Roberts and her co-star Nick Nolte were known for not getting along,
and this wasn't exactly her favorite movie. She told Vanity Fair,
"I don't know what I've already said about I Love Trouble, other than that it was a piece
of s---. It's no secret that Nick and I didn't get along like a house on fire."
After that time, Roberts needed to step away,
and we didn't hear much from her for a year. She explained,
"I don't think I realized that the cost of fame is that it's open season on
every moment of your life. That was a time when I was kind of followed every moment.
One time I saw three men jump out of a hedge."
It was after that realization that Roberts took a break,
but that didn't stop the press from talking about her. She went on to say,
"They said I was drug-addicted, alcoholic, anorexic — you name it. I mean, they
needed to say something in between the 'She's Through!' period and the 'She's Back!' period."
After her hiatus, Roberts emerged ready to go — and blonde! The late '90s were certainly busy
for the actress. She starred in the hits My Best Friend's Wedding and then Stepmom.
Trading her wild curls for her best mom bob,
Roberts went blonde for Stepmom and kept that color for a while. She also started getting some
better press. Her Best Friend's Wedding costar and bestie Rupert Everett told Vanity Fair,
"She's really Miss America,
isn't she? She's got all the qualities that people want an American woman to have."
But that doesn't mean all the publicity comes naturally to her. She told the Oprah Magazine,
"I don't dislike it. I just don't think I'm very good at it. I like everybody being nice
to everybody. And there's an element that's so unkind, so mean-spirited. It used to be more
polite. [...] I remember when you could dress for a premiere just by putting on a cute top.
Now you have to be perfect and fabulous in every way, or you're ridiculed."
When it comes to romantic comedies, Roberts never disappoints. In 1999,
she made us all swoon when she starred opposite Hugh Grant in Notting Hill. By this time,
her fame was out of control, and it even affected shooting the movie. Grant told Vanity Fair,
"It was surreal. We were shooting scenes in Notting Hill, where we had a hundred extras
playing paparazzi, and then we had a hundred paparazzi paparazzi-ing the paparazzi."
As if that wasn't enough, she made dreams come true when she reunited with Pretty Woman
co-star Richard Gere for Runaway Bride. It's no wonder they got back together, since the two had
chemistry right from the beginning. Gere told the Los Angeles Times of the pair's first meeting,
"I was so mesmerized. I don't remember Garry [Marshall]. I just remember the girl."
The press has always been fascinated with Roberts' love life,
and it's hard to blame them. She definitely had a thing for dating her leading men.
Roberts had been linked to many of her costars, including Kiefer Sutherland, Lyle Lovett,
and Benjamin Bratt, before she found her true love Danny Moder on the set of The Mexican in 2000.
She married him two years later in 2002, during a midnight ceremony on the Fourth of July.
Roberts told the Oprah Magazine in an interview that finding her husband helped her to be more
herself — perhaps that's what also inspired her change back to her classic auburn hair. She said,
"A huge part of it is my marriage. My husband, Danny, has really shined the light for me.
Because of being married, I've met people and experienced all these little things that have
nurtured my life — not so much changed it, just nurtured it in a way that's astounding."
In 2004, Roberts made headlines again when she announced that she
and her husband were expecting twins — Hazel and Finn, who were born to very happy parents in 2005.
Roberts went back to acting after the twins were born and spoke with
Oprah about how surreal it was to be back on the set of Mona Lisa Smile. She explained,
"There was a day on Mona Lisa when I was in a Ukrainian library in Manhattan,
in this kind of twirly skirt. Fabulous. I'm walking down this tiny winding staircase,
and thinking about how I'm a grown woman who comes to work and has other people dress me and
tell me what to say. I thought, 'This is kind of silly, what I do.' It's really bizarre."
Being a working mother didn't change Roberts' charismatic touch.
Just ask her Charlie Wilson's War costar Tom Hanks, who told The New York Times,
"There's no professional I admire more than Julia.
Working with her is like having a fabulous dinner conversation with somebody you really
like and who really likes you and is loaded with energy and intelligence."
Roberts proved that you don't have to be in your 20s to rock a modern cut and style.
After starring in Eat Pray Love in 2010, she opted for a gorgeous ombre color. Roberts
clearly embraced her 40s and didn't seem to worry about keeping up with younger looks and celebs.
There's always going to be another "America's sweetheart," coming up, so Roberts doesn't get
competitive. When asked her thoughts on the popular younger actress Jennifer Lawrence,
Roberts was graceful and supportive. She told Good Morning America,
"I applaud her. She's a young, fabulous, talented whippersnapper and I love that
she's stirring things up. I mean, she just — she's so energetic and seems to speak her mind
and I think it's great. I think it's great to kind of shake things up."
Hollywood is often harsh to women as they get older,
but Roberts has found that her career is just as busy as it ever was. She told The Oklahoman,
"With age comes more complexity of possible parts."
Her job security might be part of the reason that Roberts isn't afraid of growing older, but
it's not the only one. Roberts is living her best life and is excited to see what the future holds.
"I do wake up every day with an intention and a purpose and a focus."
She turned 50 in 2017, and told Harper's Bazaar the night before the milestone
birthday that she didn't have time to look back on her past. She said,
"Too much thinking and pondering,
it's exhausting to me. Because we're still moving forward, aren't we?"
Roberts has remained unbothered about growing older, telling UK's I News that
she doesn't understand why everyone makes such a fuss about turning 50. She said,
"For myself, [...] I was quite proud and happy."
Roberts has spent most of her career on the big screen. Sure, she's had some roles on television,
but it wasn't until 2018 that she became a bona fide television star when she began
portraying Heidi Bergman on Homecoming — her first starring role on a TV show.
It was a whole new format for Roberts, but the transition from film to television was
surprisingly not too extreme for the actress. Aside from being on a TV show giving her,
quote, "more time to shoot and more time to unravel people," she explained to Variety that,
at the end of the day, it's all about storytelling for her. She said,
"Everything is just so good, the bar is just so high,
and for me it's just nice to bring something into people's homes."
Roberts is such a powerhouse that it's sometimes hard to remember that she comes from
a star-studded family. Her brother is actor Eric Roberts and her niece is his daughter,
actress Emma Roberts. Roberts and her niece have a particularly close relationship,
and the physical resemblance between them is one that many
a moviegoer has been quick to notice. Eric told Us Weekly,
"It's really cool to look at them. I love seeing them together."
Roberts even guided her young niece's interest in the acting industry. In a
2014 appearance on The Queen Latifah Show, the younger actress revealed that she would
often tag along with her aunt on movie sets when she was growing up, saying,
"You would have to drag me off set."
"I would go and visit and my mom would be like, 'Aren't you bored,
don't you want to leave?' and I would be like, 'No, I'm working in hair and makeup now.'"
Emma announced that she was pregnant with her first child in 2020,
and Roberts seemed ecstatic that she was about to become a great-aunt.
In the comments of Emma's gender reveal pic on Instagram, Roberts wrote "love you."
Emma gave birth later that year,
and it's safe to assume Julia was all too excited to welcome baby Rhodes into the family.
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