Being Julia

The star with the megawatt smile has been wowing fans for the past three decades. We look at what makes Julia Roberts stand out from the A-list crowd

- Phoebe Watt

It’s 1991 and a 23-year-old Julia Roberts is being interviewed by the LA Times following on from the success of Pretty Woman – the film that, one year earlier, became a box office smash and made a phenomenon of the young actress from Smyrna, Georgia. Described by 20th Century Fox’s then-chairman Joe Roth as “up there with Costner, Gibson, Schwarzenegger”, the notion that Julia’s star power puts her in a league of extraordinary gentlemen isn’t even a veiled implication. “Right now there are perhaps 10 people whose names alone could guarantee the success of a film,” he says, “and she’s arguably the only woman on that list.”

Commanding more money than any other leading lady in Hollywood – which at the time meant $7 million for 1992’s Renegade – she is, according to one former agent, being sent every script in the business. Put simply, “There’s Julia Roberts… and everyone else.”

Fast forward 30 years and she’s still, without question, one of the most famous movie stars on the planet. Adding to her substantial CV in late 2018 with the releases of Homecoming – a new TV series in which she plays a caseworker at a transitional facility for soldiers – and the critically-acclaimed family drama Ben is Back, she went on to steal the show at the Oscars in March, where she presented the prestigious Best Picture award. Throughout the remainder of 2019, she’s in talks to star in and produce a number of film and television projects – including a rumoured screen adaptation of the bestselling Jo Piazza novel, Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win – and that’s in addition to fronting campaigns for Lancôme, the luxury French cosmetics brand she’s lent her face to for the past 10 years.