Julia Roberts: “My obsession has limits”

Our meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m. in Malibu, at a restaurant with that Hollywood name – Sunset (“Sunset”). One of its walls overlooking the ocean is entirely a window, and I observe this infinite blue freedom, this unlimitedness, this element of open space. I see here some rhyme of place and time: I have an interview with a star who has passed 50, and how can I not recall the classic “Sunset Boulevard”, in which the aging actress desperately defended her place on the Olympus of Hollywood glory.

But my interlocutor is completely different: she does not cling to the status of a star and would calmly accept the decline of her career. She herself drives a Mercedes, a formidable black pickup truck, which fits not only her whole family, where three teenagers, but, as the heroine testifies, “the results of our eternal grocery shopping, as well as surfboards in the summer, skis in the winter, suitcases and everything these essential Tom Sawyer items that teenagers need.” She herself is engaged in this very shopping, she takes the children to school herself, in their family house here in Malibu everyone does the cleaning themselves. Roberts does not have and did not have nannies, assistants and drivers.

In the way of life of an ordinary person, she sees not a chain of troubles, to which we are so inclined, but freedom, unlimitedness, the element of open space only of her life – outside the red carpet and publicity.

She walks into a restaurant, I stand up to signal to her that I’m here, she takes off her black glasses and reveals the face of a beautiful middle-aged woman who does not even try to look younger – with wrinkles on her forehead and around her eyes, they seem to be wrinkles of smiles and wisdom , with big eyes, and in them maternal attentiveness …

Roberts nods matter-of-factly and walks towards me at a quick pace, as if she has something else to do right now. And do it quickly. What Roberts herself explains right there, without being frivolous.

Julia Roberts: Oh, life with three children brings organization. I am always afraid of being late and I suspect of being late … you, well, everyone with whom meetings are scheduled. After all, this will knock life off the optimal rhythm, which is serious when you have children of different ages and everyone has their own schedule.

Psychologies: Sorry for the faux pas, but I’ve even read hard-hitting things about you in the tabloids that are usually friendly to you. As if in a cloudless 16-year marriage, disagreements arose approximately because of this – because of your mania for following a schedule, that is, a tendency to total control …

And also the tabloids write that I am expecting a baby at the age of 51. In its own way, this is quite friendly, of course … But what kind of marriage does without disagreements? Who can boast of the absence of contradictions? However, there is the main thing. And for me the main thing is that marrying Danny (Daniel Moder, cameraman. – Approx. ed.) Is my most correct act, for all these years I have never doubted it.

And the fact that I’m a control freak … Fact! But I don’t know any other way to live in my circumstances. One, Hazel, needs to dance, the other, Finn, to his favorite football, the third, Henry, decided to take up fencing and French at the same time, because he, you see, has a musketeer period. And the fourth – Danny – has a responsible shooting, and he needs to prepare for it by a trip to New York in order to personally observe the compositional features on Degas’s canvases at the Metropolitan Museum, because the director decided to stylize the image of the film in his spirit!

And on a normal day, just getting dressed and leaving the house for four people at the same time is already a task for the mother. Although… Although lately I’ve been noticing that my craving for control has to be curbed. Hazel recently cut her hair. Your beautiful, thick blond hair! To the waist! Which got so many compliments. And this is so important when you’re 13. My daughter donated them to Wigs for Kids – they make wigs from real hair for children who have lost their hair as a result of treatment.

Hazel herself decided so. It was important to her. I saw an ad somewhere on the Internet and asked me to take her to the hairdresser. And so decisively that I didn’t even ask the usual parental question if she would regret it later. I could see that this was her first, fully grown-up, thoughtful decision, perhaps. And felt proud of her. Everything has its limits – even my obsession.

But all this really looks like ordinary family worries … With the exception of Degas, of course. But you don’t expect that from Julia Roberts. From the one who was, and maybe still is considered the highest paid actress in Hollywood, who for the fifth, record time became the most beautiful woman on the planet according to People magazine, who is the undisputed star, in a word … I think there is a contradiction here.

But it…. how should I put it… outside of me. Work is work, but there is also my life. By the way, we recently spoke with Danny about filming, and he subtly remarked: if I worked even less, I would not work at all. I really kept the movie to a minimum. I only participate in projects that interest me.

This is a luxury that not all actors, even famous ones, can afford …

I have always allowed myself a lot. In the 1990s, she refused offers for almost two years, because she did not understand what all this was for – new roles of Cinderella and beauties? I was the star of a romantic comedy, flirting, kissing, the audience categorically did not want to see me even in explicit scenes. Not like in serious dramatic roles, although the Oscar nomination brought me a tragic, in fact, role in Steel Magnolias (a comedy with elements of drama by Herbert Ross came out in 1989 – Note ed.), when I was only something 23.

But then I seemed to irrevocably become “Pretty Woman” … I still remember that feeling – the meaninglessness of work for myself personally. And I don’t want to experience it again. Why, it’s impossible to stand on tiptoe at the very top for any long time. You will lose your balance anyway or you will want to go to the toilet. Therefore, there is little work, but cooking, fencing, football and this … sports rock and roll … a lot.

But you probably won’t be allowed to forget that you’re still the star and “face” of Lancôme, Calzedonia… Do they recognize you on the street, in stores?

Yes, I somehow do not attract this kind of energy. In any case, they don’t always recognize me, at worst they say: “You look so much like Julia Roberts!” The last time I even said that I was Julia Roberts on the driver’s license. To which that man, such a strong businesslike peasant, a salesman in the meat department, replied: “Come on, lie.” So it’s all right here.

Did you change your life consciously or did it happen by itself, with the birth of children, as, frankly, most of us do?

Life has really changed, but not with the birth of children. And after I married Danny. It was as if the needle of my inner compass flickered and turned. All priorities have changed. Before I met him, I was quite a spoiled, self-confident Hollywood thing.

I had a lot of time for myself, and, to be honest, I didn’t know what to do with it, and I didn’t really appreciate it. And when we became a family, somehow it happened so quickly that there was absolutely no time for ourselves. Then the twins, Finn and Hazel, were born, and it turned out that there was no time for a pedicure either. It is not always present even now. But I know that no one cares about my legs.

Not sure…

Well, of course, that’s not entirely true. in objective reality. But in mine it is. And this is happiness – my conviction that no one cares about my legs. Priorities are what matters. You say it’s strange that I don’t have an au pair. And for me it is a kind of privilege to be able to cook every day for my family.

It’s not just that I love it – to cook. And I can, by the way. I learned from my mother, sat in the kitchen and watched her. But it was not easy to feed the three of us (Roberts has an older sister and brother: Eric and Lisa, now both actors. – Approx. ed.). Well, it’s not just that I love it. This gives me a special pride – I myself take care of the family, and qualitatively. A luxury not available to all women in our time.

One of the famous said: “Happiness is a big, friendly, loving family. In another city.” I appreciate wit, but this is not about me. I am fully present in my family, and this is what happiness is for me. I didn’t waste those years almost away from the cinema in vain. I learned the meaning of many words. In general, the meaning of many important words you learn only with age.

For example?

For example, I now know exactly what love is.

And?

Love is when you want the person you love to be happy. Even if you yourself do not become part of his happiness.

And yet?

…What is fear. Fear for children, for loved ones is understandable. But there is another, less pathetic, perhaps – when you decide to say “yes” for fear that the well will dry up – that you will no longer be offered this role, this contract, this client … This is the most insidious fear that takes us away from us themselves. And this is probably the main thing I would like to teach children – not to be afraid of such fear, not to let it guide their actions.

In general, do you have any developed principles, methods of education?

Well… there are only two of them. I have already said about the first and main thing – to always be present in a child’s life. The second … Recently, the film “Miracle” was released, in which I played the mother of a boy who was born with serious anomalies, his face resembles a terrible mask. The picture is based on an amazingly kind book. It is addressed to children, teenagers from 12 to 15 years old. Just mine, it turns out.

And Danny and I read it aloud to them before bed. Several evenings. And you know what those evenings were… When you feel that your child is learning empathy and understanding of another, although you don’t teach him this. When he accepts someone else’s pain, although you do not lecture him. When no didactics. This is my ideal – to create conditions for the child to understand something important himself, and you only helped him. I can’t say that I do it often. But sometimes it still works out.

How do you see your future – if work has faded into the background?

It’s not like that, it’s not like that at all. I have achieved a lot and would like to achieve even more, but … You know, when Danny and I met on the set, he was the second cameraman on The Mexican and then, when working on some projects, I was haunted by this strange feeling: the only viewer I want to impress is already here, behind the camera …

And now the same thing – those viewers who are most important to me, these are my children and husband. Now, if you really work, then to see pride in yourself in their eyes. The future is just an extended present.

Her three behind-the-scenes roles

Screen fame for Julia Roberts is not an end in itself. She willingly becomes an ordinary invisible film front and plays off the screen with almost more dedication.

In the documentary series “Voice of Nature”, the voice of Mother Nature itself, became the voice of Roberts. She speaks on behalf of our planet, and the viewer will learn about how a person sometimes destroys her, how much he does not know how to be tactful with her. She also plays the voice of Roberts in cartoons: she has the role of a wise and resourceful spider in Gary Winick’s Charlotte’s Web and a strong female smurf and a convinced feminist smurf Iva in the mega-blockbuster The Smurfs: The Lost Village.

There is a certain logic in the fact that Roberts acted as a reader of the audio version of the best-selling book by Nikola Kraus and Emma McLaughlin, The Nanny Diaries. The book is about a student who, in search of work, ended up in a family from Fifth Avenue as a nanny for a 4-year-old boy. And she became a witness to a completely ordinary, unsightly life, hiding behind the luxurious facades of Manhattan apart-buildings. Yet this is precisely what Roberts avoids by consistently avoiding the idea of ​​hiring cooks, butlers and maids.

Even now, although more than 10 years have passed, Roberts considers his participation in the play “Three Days of Rain” in two roles on Broadway at once as one of his main acting achievements. She admits that she is afraid of the stage, she is “fascinated by the closeness of the viewer” – she is too sensitive to his reactions. But one way or another, the performance became one of the Broadway record holders – it collected more than a million dollars in its first week in the repertoire.