Does anyone else think this is quite possibly the loveliest Julia Roberts has looked in years? I usually hate when she’s doing this blonde-with-roots look, but this Wall Street Journal photoshoot is amazing. So pretty. Anyway, you can read the full WSJ piece here – WSJ has really stepped it up with their celebrity interviews over the past year or so, and this piece is one of the most intensive Julia interviews I’ve read in a while. It’s a good piece, and it probably helps that Julia is promoting a project that she cares about: the HBO movie The Normal Heart. Some highlights:
Living in Malibu since 2007: “We’re just grateful for the sense we have of being like any other family down the street. I don’t question it, frankly.”
Time away from Hollywood: “By the time we had kids, I had accomplished things and felt secure about that part of my life. I was so joyful moving into the family phase of my life in a sincere way.” As a result, “for a long time,” she says of her children, “they weren’t even aware I had a job because I was home so much. Now they get it.”
Acting in a wheelchair: “It was the most actor-y I’ve ever been. But you don’t want to be bumping into walls and doorjambs and scraping your knuckles on things. I thought being in a wheelchair would be so easy and quiet, but it was actually quite tiring.”
She’s happiest in ensembles: “My preference would forever be ensemble. It’s where I started, and it’s what I love. It’s just fun and interesting to see what your fellow actors are coming up with. Mystic Pizza was like that, Steel Magnolias was like that. It’s like being in a big family.”
Working with her husband Danny Moder: “I find it nerve-wracking in the best schoolgirl kind of way, and he knows that and is a good sport,” she says. “I am usually hoping he’s not looking into the camera and thinking, ‘What is she doing?’ We have worked together a lot and whenever we get there, I think, ‘Why are we doing this again?’ But it’s great, and it allows us to travel together.”
On the current fame game: “I think there is a dehumanization that goes with fame, especially in the present culture of it, which isn’t the culture I started off in. There wasn’t this analysis of every iota of every moment of every day. Nobody cared about what you wore, nobody cared what haircut you had, if you had on makeup or didn’t—it’s become this sort of sport.”
The old fame game: Roberts is nostalgic for the Hollywood of her early career, where having arrived meant a dinner invitation to agent Sue Mengers’s house and “there seemed to be a method to it,” she says. “You had your job and you got paid $1, and you got your next job and got paid $2. It made sense to me… It used to be that you could build from weekend to weekend and people talked. Now, if there have been two showtimes and it hasn’t sold 10 bazillion tickets, you’re dead in the water. I don’t consider myself a celebrity, [at least not] how it is fostered in our culture today. I don’t know if I’m old and slow, but there seems to be a frenzy to it.”
Her sister’s death: “It’s just heartbreak. It’s only been 20 days. There aren’t words to explain what any of us have been through in these last 20 days. It’s hour by hour some days, but you just keep looking ahead. You don’t want anything bad to happen to anyone, but there are so many tragic, painful, inexplicable things in the world. But [as with] any situation of challenge and despair, we must find a way, as a family. It’s so hard to formulate a sentence about it outside the weepy huddle of my family.”
Not having any projects on the horizon: “It’s nice. We have the rest of the school year. The thing about being a parent is that as your kids get older, Fridays start to get super exciting again, and Sundays start to get melancholic. Spring break is exciting again.”
[From the Wall Street Journal]
Ah, I remember Sue Mengers. Sue Mengers was old-school – one good word from Mengers could make a career. One bad word and you were done in Hollywood. Mengers was still trying to play the game until the end – I remember reading an interview with her in the late 00s about how Jennifer Aniston is the biggest, brightest movie star or something.
As for Julia’s quotes about her sister Nancy… I don’t have anything to say. It’s a tragedy and I like that Julia and her family handled everything very quietly. Julia’s quotes here sound rehearsed, but I don’t blame her. If she said anything more about it, her words would be parsed ad infinitum.
Julia also talks a lot about how she prepared for The Normal Heart, where she plays a doctor with polio who is fighting for more HIV/AIDS awareness – she says this was the most she ever prepared and researched for a role, which confuses me because she’s played some complicated characters in the past. It’s like Julia is saying that she phones it in most of the time.
Photos courtesy of the Wall Street Journal.
Julia looks really attractive here….She’s always been kind of an unconventional beauty imo with the giant, cartoonish facial features that somehow mesh well together. I know she’s got a reputation for being a stone cold bitch, but I like what she says here….As much as I like celebrity gossip, the tendency to over analyze every single comment or action a celebrity does (which can be taken out of context) gets a little overboard sometimes. I kind of miss the days when there weren’t 9000 articles on why Goopy is annoying….
Yeah I just watched Closer again last night and I was reminded at how good of an actress she can actually be. I typically think of her as a Sandra Bullock-type; as in relatively overrated and marginally forgettable, but she was great in that film.
I was also struck by how beautiful she is…she DOES have exaggerated features, but somehow she is stunning…that smile in particular lights up her whole face.
I too have heard the stories of a rather insufferable persona but I like what she says here.
+1
I’ll add that I don’t think she implied that she phoned in some of her other performances because she worked so hard on this one. I got that the wheelchair alone made this performance trickier than some of her others.
And they didn’t photoshop her ‘wrinkles’ under the eyes, which I found refreshing.. finally! And it doesn’t take anything off her beauty, tbh…
I always found her quite ‘phony’ in interviews but in this one she came across well.
@TOkitten
Her legs are the best in HW, just my two cents. And her smile too 🙂
She really does look stunning in these photos.
Yeah, she really does. I like that she looks natural and that they didn’t Photoshop out her expression lines.
Lovely pictures! And I’m not a JR fan personally. But she looks great here.
And she’s a great contrast to other celebs and their kids. You hardly ever see her children. Move to Malibu, Halle!
I know most of you can’t stand her, but she looks gorgeous in these photos. The outfits work. She cleans up nicely when she isn’t dressing herself for a fancy affair, like the Oscars.
Never liked this toothy horse. Mean person. If you want class, try Christy Turlington, Brooke Shields or Ivanka Trump. Outside beauty only shines when it comes from inside.
+1!!!! Nice!!!!!
Thank you, I feel as if I am in the minority on this. I will give her credit for doing a good job in August: Osage County, but other than that, no beauty, no talent. Lots of ego apparently.
She looks beautiful. I agree that celebrity has changed for the worst since she started out. (And realize the irony of where I’m making that comment.)
+1 to everything, she looks beautiful here and yeah, it definitely has and lol yes to the irony of where we’re making that comment. Sigh.
She looks lovely, really like the photos.
Those are great photos, and one of the least annoying interviews she’s done.
If she did the interview less than month after her sister died, I don’t blame her for having a rehearsed answer. She knew they’d ask and wanted to be prepared.
I agree with everything you said!
Totally agree. The parameters for this interview were likely set up ahead of time, and she had time to formulate an answer with her people. Not an easy question to answer under any circumstances, and it would have been much worse to avoid it. I think she handled it very well.
I like how she choses her roles. She’s not looking for a blockbuster, she’s looking for quality. She needs to advise Johnny Depp. She is absolutely right about the dehumanization of celebrities. It’s as if they’ve become things in a museum to gawk at. I am apart of some fandoms where supposed fans rip their favorites left and right based on the most mundane items, like what they are wearing or even where they are living. I really do think social media is a big part of this where there is an entitlement where most fans feel like they are owed something.
Smart actors manage to avoid it for the most part, and they do so by not courting social media. The problem is that so much of celebrity is skewed young (teen-age), and these kids are not provided proper management. They think that they must constantly be exposed to keep working.
Acting is what you do for a living; celebrity is largely created, and largely created by the very people arguing that they don’t like the consequences.
I agree completely. I don’t know what it is–but a lot of the younger actors are more concerned with being seen by the paparazzi, by being in the tabloids (Selena Gomez going back to Justin Bieber too many times to count, canceling her tour, etc), and how their press is–when they need to be worried about their quality of work a whole lot more.
They’re confusing fame with success–where are all the Twilight people? GONE. How many of them have a solid career? Especially out of the younger ones–probably only Kristen and Rob, and even that’s tenuous at best, because I don’t think either of them are all that great, or even good/
You can’t rely on being the thing in the next big franchise–I remember discussing this on that Zac Efron post–how he was THE hottest thing, up until Rob came along.
She looks pretty here. I love what she’s wearing in the last photo.
Sorry, don’t like the blonde hair or its owner. Not buying the softer image. Obviously, just my opinion.
I’m with you on that; I loathe this woman. I don’t think these photoshop pics are anything special either. Of course she likes working with an ensemble cast because when was the last time she open a movie on just her name alone.
I do agree with one poster who says she lives in Malibu and she is hardly ever paped with her children which makes me believe that most celebs do have arrangements with the paparazzi. She also at one time lived on a ranch in New Mexico when her kids were younger far out of reach of the paps. So Halle and Jen Garner you can still be a working actress/actor and have some privacy with your little ones.
I guess Naomi Watts has paparrazi on speed dial since I see her boys all the time.As for Halle I’ve seen her kids four times this year so the law is working for her family.Good for her and Nahla.
Well if Naomi is visiting popular places where the paps are of course she’s going to be paped. As for Halle I believe most of her shots were staged, esp when she was going through that bitter custody battle. She went to popular places where she knew the paps would be such as the pumpkin patch. She uses the paps when they are beneficial to her.
Allegedly Naomi Watts and her kids get caught out around their school so much because some other celebrity parent at that school has an arrangement. SJP? I forget who it is, but she and Schreiber send their kids to a school with several celebrity families and remember hearing NYC gossip that it made for really awkward PTAs because this one celebrity screwed it for the rest of them.
I have never seen a picture of Naomi’s boys outside of a school.I see them at parks, stores, etc. But since they are photographed often their parents must have an agreement with paparrazi according to some people.I guess Hugh Jackman has an agreement also.Because EVERY child who is papd parents called the paparrazi, right? GMAB
@Kim1 Really don’t see why you seem so bent out of shape over such a generalization. No one said that all celebs staged pap shots, I said most of the ones that are paped probably do. Even if you see shots of Naomi with her kids in the parks, stores etc, most likely they frequent the same parks or stores and paps know where to go. It was also said that store clerks, hotel staff etc, alerts the paps to the wherabouts of some celebrities. I think you’re being a bit over the top in your defense of these people.
@V4Real- This! She’s been living in Malibu that long and I don’t know what her kids look like. Chris Hemsworth and his wife have lived there for 5 months and get papped every week? Celebs can definately go under the radar of they want.
I’ve always disliked her – to the extent that I avoided a lot of her movies. The death of her sister, and a recent re-watch of Mystic Pizza has softened that dislike slightly. I still don’t like how she got her husband, but there’s a lot of cheaters in Hollywood, and having children and staying with the person you cheated with always seems to mitigate the adultery.
She seems to do well by her children, and that’s a lot more than some celebrities do.
@V4Real your initial comment said you believe MOST celebs have an agreement with paparazzi. I disagree I believe MOST celebs like Naomi Watts, Hugh Jackman etc frequent the same places and that is why their kids are photographed. I know hotel workers , store clerks , gas station attendants, airport workers call in tips. I have relatives in Inglewood who call in tips to paparazzi. My issue with you is you want to accuse CERTAIN celebrities for being in cahoots but you have excuses , explanations why other celebrities kids are regularly photographed. Jennifer Garner kids are photographed for the same reason Naomi Watts kids are photographed because they are followed by paps and their pictures are in demand.
@Kim1 Key word is most, not all. If I had said all then your argument would hold water. It’s my opinion that most of the celebs that are often paped most likely have made arrangements with the paps. Let’s take Hugh Jackman for instance since you mentioned him. Yes he gets paped but no where near as much as Jessica Alba and he’s a much bigger star. When was the last time you have seen Hugh’s family and how many times lately? You don’t see a lot of pics of Hugh with his kids. Naomi is mostly in NY and she frequents some of the same places more than once so of course the paps can easily shoot her because they know her pattern.
Yes I can accuse some celebs of of being in cahoots, that’s my opinion. Your opinion may be that no celeb stage photos. Does that make your opinion more valid than mine? I feel that Garner and Berry stage photos when it’s beneficial to them, so what. I still don’t understand why you seem a bit tight because I gave my opinion about how some stars seems to avoid the prying eyes of the paps while others are always front and center.
Listen @V4Real we have different opinions on this . As for Hugh Jackman I see pics of his kids all the time ,at least ten times this year.More than Ive seen Jessica Alba kids so Who is calling the paparazzi? I just saw pic of his son yesterday and his daughter on a scooter a few days ago. There are plenty celebs’ kids who live in NYC who I never see . Why? So according to you he could avoid the paps since many NYC based celebs do. I’m tired of the double standards.We will have to agree to disagree .
I don’t believe most movie stars are staging photos. Jennifer Garner kids are photographed EVERY single week regardless of the season. They are not photographed MORE during Awards season or when they have a movie opening . That is a myth. I have checked several celebritybaby sites monthly. archives.I’m tired of this misinformation being repeated on every thread regarding Jennifer Garner. H#ll I’m not even a fan of hers .
@Kim1
Comparing Hugh Jackman with Jessica Alba is not really that appropriate.. given that I wouldn’t know who Jessica Alba is or what is her job if it was not for gossip sites.
I think V4Real argument was that some people raise their celebrity profile calling the paps and if you had read Rolling Stones interview yesterday you would understand that V4Real has a point.
Yes, I’m sure old people in the 1980s used to say the same thing about the 1950s.
She does phone it in. In pretty much every movie I’ve ever seen her in, she just plays versions of herself, down to the same mannerisms, laugh, everything.
I’ve felt she’s overrated for about 10 years or more. I won’t watch movies with her in them, except for Steel Magnolias.
And her character dies in that one. 😉 HEE.
LOL!!!
I know she’s known to be a real ball buster (I can appreciate that) but she’s anyways carried herself well in interviews, I’ve also heard great things about get looking out for her friends.
She looks lovely in an unconventional way, she’s right about what constitutes celebrity today.
Tho, I can’t condemn society without looking at myself for being on a gossip site – I do draw the line at following celebrities on Twitter or instagram, it just seems like too much.
I think she’s right that there is a dehumanization that comes with fame… nowadays, it must be really tough being in the spotlight with everyone dissecting your every move, criticizing your wardrobe choices and heavily speculating on your love life. Sometimes I even long for the early 90’s where there was a mystique about famous folks.
With that said, I still do love reading celebrity gossip and contributing my 2 cents to online blogs like this… crappy, I know, but the Internet has changed everything.
The Internet sure has changed things a ton. Celeb gossip back then for me was waiting for my People magazine to come in the mail every Friday and then discussing with the two other friends I have who care about this crap as much as I do!
And I was telling my kids how “tabloid” mags back when I was a kid, like the National Enquirer, mostly had stories about alien babies and other grotesque phenomena. I used to read my great aunt’s with fascination. The only celeb story I remember clearly back then was one of the tabs showing Elvis in his casket on the cover, I was horrified.
When I was a kid, I remember the most often reported ‘celeb’ gossip being the Kennedys, particularly JFK Jr, Monaco kids – Stephanie and Caroline, BRF – Diana and Fergie. And the occasional ‘kooky’ MJ story.
Everybody else was in respectable monthlies which didn’t really count as celeb gossip.
By my teens, there was more gossip in daily newspapers considered mainstream. Who can forget the weekly sunday kiss and tell feature of most sunday papers?!
In her day Julia gave the tabloids a run….all those boyfriends, fiances and husbands, true and alleged etc
Ha, that’s so true about Julia. Weirdly I can vividly remember standing in a convenience store with a couple friends crowding around the latest People or whatever mag broke the story about her dumping Kiefer for Jason Patric. She definitely gave the rags tons of material!
I agree with you regarding the Internet! Even 10 years ago, pre-Twitter and pre-Instagram, celebrities still had a bit of mystery about them. You didn’t know what they were eating for dinner, who they partied with, who is buying a new car, etc., in real time like you do now.
Perhaps using a wheelchair will make her think before parking in a parking spot reserved for handicapped individuals (as she has been photographed doing in the past).
Cosign this! That is the first thought that comes to mind whenever I see her. My Don uses a wheelchair so I am really sensitive about that type of thing.
I have zero respect for someone who does this. Mila Kunis has also been photographed doing this to run into Starbucks for a coffee. How entitled can you get?!
Maybe she prepared more for this role because it is the most important role or most difficult , most challenging role she has taken on.Matt Bomer said he prepared more for this project due to subject matter
the only difference between fame then and fame now is she can’t control it.
the dehumanization factor has always been a part, a carefully cultivated part, of being a huge hollywood actor. they just have much less control over it.
for instance, when she wore her message tshirt. instead of having boot-licking people mag run a blurb (siding with her, of corse) and people mag being the masses’ only connection to it, she lost control of the spin and people decided she was a nasty piece of work using her power to intimidate someone of a much lesser stature; that she was down right petty and heartless.
sorry jules, since day one of movie stardom people have cared what you wear, how your hair is done, what diet you prescribe to, what color your poop is, etc. at least since the 1920s. it is a racket you knowingly signed up for.
poor baby. 🙄
and double roll right out of the sockets that she now knows driving a wheel chair is quite tiring.
That’s what I’m wondering–because if she’d pulled that tshirt stunt even a few years later, then the gossip blogs would’ve eaten her alive. I think, considering how she is, she’s gotten very little criticism aimed at her–nothing she can’t ignore anyway.
So I’m wondering if she’s talking about how awful it is, because she can’t control it, because she isn’t a big deal anymore….but it’s probably more that I just can’t stand her.
@poppy
Fame has never been anything you can control. That’s an illusion that some people and actors have but there are many cases in the 1930s/1940s of actors whose fame spun out of control. Errol Flynn could be one.
I personally cannot stand her. Yes, she does look pretty in these pictures, but after she went after a married man I lost all respect for her. Now, I just look at her as a home-wrecker!!
I’m more PO’d about that tshirt–I think cheating is a human thing. Like I don’t immediately tar all cheaters with the same brush. But there’s a difference between having an affair, and then getting with that person, and being together, than doing all of that and intentionally antagonizing the wife IN PUBLIC. I mean, that’s how Vera Moder is known in HW–as the woman who was insulted in public, on the internet to see FOREVER, by the woman sleeping with her husband–while she was pregnant, if I’m not mistaken. That turns me off way more than actual cheating.
Just like with Leann and Eddie. I don’t like Leann. Not because she cheated on her husband, with someone else who was married–but because she goes out of her way to needle Brandi, and has for years, while pretending like she’s the victim of an angry, bitter, ex wife (See: all Spitfire interviews).
There were no children between Danny and Vera, so she wasn’t pregnant when this went down. Not that I think that would have stopped them.
I agree with you. That t-shirt did it for me forever for her; it showed her true colors. I can’t stand her.
@Virgilia
I don’t paint all cheaters with the same brush either…. It depends on so many factors!
One of the rare interviews of her where she comes across as thoughtful and human and not an insufferable bitch. Liked her comments about the current state of celebrity as well.
“I thought being in a wheelchair would be so easy and quiet, but it was actually quite tiring”
Easy? In a wheelchair, easy? Wow. Just. WOW!
So insulting and able-ist and rude and terrible.
I can understand why you interpreted the quote that way, and I’m not one to defend Julie Roberts. I interpreted her comment as meaning she thought a lot of her acting would take place sitting in a wheelchair, but ended up having to be able to seriously navigate in that wheelchair. I don’t think anyone knows how hard that is unless they actually try it.
She can be insufferable, but I don’t think she was trying to say she thought wheelchair bound people have it easy.
She chose to be an actor, she set her laser-like sights on attaining fame and fortune in Hollywood and she steam-rollered over a lot of people on the way up. She lived a pretty messy love-life with well known celebrity partners in the glare of the spotlight. So I don’t think she should diss “celebrity culture” other than pap harassment because she’s one of many celebrities who brought it upon themselves. And it’s allowing her a pretty darn lavish lifestyle I might add.
Great comment that seems to ring true.
I have grown to really like her. I was never a fan during the “sweetheart” years, mostly navies I was too young to care. The older she gets the cooler she gets, IMO. And, I agree, she looks beautiful here.
I dont like her she was wrong for everything that she did publicly shaming the ex wife and mother of of the new husband was low i stoped liking her when I saw that disgusting shirt, I think she can be evil sometimes. I really dont look her up so I dont know if she gets all that hateful crap spewed all over her like other women in a some what similar situation do, I suspect not so much because her husband and his ex are not famous and nobody really cares for them.
Danny moder never had kids with Vera. Dur.
Maybe I was confussing her with another woman, but I still think Julia got off a bit easy in this matter, while other women in the same situation have not, I dont doubt she has had her share of hate coming her way I think all celebrities go trough it but it wasnt as bad for her because her husband is a nobody.
I agree, she does seem to get away with so much more than any other celeb.
She is not a great actress on film, but in real life, she seems to convince enough people that she’s either a victim, n empowered woman, one of the girls, one of the guys, mature, or sensitive. At least Goop doesn’t ‘t get away with her phoney stunts.
Whenever I listen to Julia I feel like a mark.
Julia looks beautiful. She has a spectacular face.
She’s now doing HBO movies? Hmmm. The last several movies she’s appeared in haven’t done well: the snow white one, Eat Pray Love, etc. She doesn’t have the box office draw she used to and that’s why she’s not being offered good lead roles. It’s a whole different ball game now when great actors such as Ewan McGregor, and not so great ones such as Halle Berry are doing tv/cable work.
She’s kind of right. As much as fame has always been about putting people’s personal lives in the spotlight, we’ve become overly saturated by it. Self-publishing through twitter and instagram are a part of it. Because everyone should care what I had for breakfast, they should care about a celebrity even MORE, because they’re famous. Nobody knows where to draw the line. Paps showing up at funerals isn’t a new thing, but how far they go, how rude they can be, that seems new. Just watch TMZ to find out how entitled they think they are.
Dehumanizing ???? Seriously ????
Human trafficking, chronic illness, domestic abuse, these are situations where people feel rightly dehumanized…she doesn’t have to be famous , she can go away and people will forget about her.
What is with her, is she a narcissist or what.