JULIA’S JUGGLE
WHY THE STAR’S BEST CHOICES INVOLVE PUTTING FAMILY FIRST
Her sensible parenting advice
When Julia Roberts is asked to list three turning points in her life, she doesn’t include her 1990 role in Pretty Woman, which catapulted her to overnight stardom. She also ignores her Oscar-winning role in the 2000 drama Erin Brockovich or other films including Notting Hill, My Best Friend’s Wedding and Eat Pray Love.
“You might be disappointed with my list as it’s not very sexy,” she teases, “but my greatest hits list is being born, getting married and having kids.”
The 51-year-old has carefully arranged her career for the past two decades to fall in line behind personal priorities, including her husband of 16 years, film director of photography Danny Moder (49), and children – twins Hazel and Phinnaeus (13), and Henry (11).
“Isn’t it incredible?” she jokes when asked how she makes it look so easy to juggle. “I never fail – I’m perfect and I’m the only one, I hear!”
Getting more serious, she admits, “You are the juggler as soon as you consider that you are responsible for any other person in the world. Figuring it out, I’ve learned the best way to make that work for everybody is to remember to make it work for myself first. Out of that comes my love of everything else for everyone else.”
Julia has had a long history of dating her co-stars, going back to her co-habiting romance with Liam Neeson, sparked during the filming of Satisfaction in 1988. She was engaged to her Steel Magnolias husband Dylan McDermott in 1989 and to
Kiefer Sutherland after they co-starred in the 1990 movie Flatliners, and she married singer Lyle Lovett after he played opposite her in 1992 drama
The Player, before divorcing less than two years later. Danny was a camera operator on the set of her 2001 film The Mexican. He was married but filed for divorce in 2001, shortly after she broke up with actor Benjamin Bratt.
She says marrying Danny was one of the best decisions of her life. “I found the person who, for me, turned out to be my perfect match,” she says beaming.
“There’s nothing guaranteed about finding that person in this big, wide world. It’s the thing that shapes you, that crystallises the definition of who you are and I’ll always be grateful that he’s the father of my children too.”
The juggle between her busy home life and her just-as-busy career is ongoing for the mother-of-three. And in Julia’s new film, Ben Is Back, she plays a mum who is devoted to but tormented by her drug-addicted teenage son. The film is already being touted as an awards contender. She has also made her TV debut in Amazon series Homecoming, which is based on a popular podcast, in which she plays a counsellor helping war veterans. “I’m here to help,” she jokes. “I like to think that I do help, actually, because I’m very free with my advice if it is asked for. I think, in my circle of friends, I’d be considered maybe one of the main advisers, so I take that very honourably.”
Julia says her youngest son, Henry, surprised her when she announced she was taking on the Ben Is Back role. “I explained I had to go away from my family and he said,
‘So, Mummy, are you doing another movie that’s about you being another boy’s mum?’
“I’d just played a mum in the film Wonder and now this one, so it was heartbreaking to hear him say that. I invited the actors over who played my kids and we spent the day together, with my kids getting to know them and I think we all benefited from that.”
While Julia’s character fights for her son’s recovery in the powerful drama, she seems relieved that her own children are too young to give her that kind of heartache.
“Danny and I work hard to be a united front as parents. As I’m sure most parents will tell you, you can’t let them see they can drive a wedge between you.
“As far as being strict, we maybe take turns, but some things are probably just more part of my territory and there are other things that Danny notices and I don’t, so it creates a balance for us that also throws the kids off – because they don’t know who is the strict parent!”
Recently, Julia found herself sitting in a Broadway theatre watching a new hit musical version of Pretty Woman.
“They did a great job and my cheeks hurt at the end of it from smiling,” she says, “but I didn’t realise how strange it would be to hear people saying things on a Broadway stage that once upon a time you had just made up to fill some space in a scene, so that was surreal.”
‘Make it work for yourself first’