TAKING A CLOSER LOOK:

Hollywood star Julia Roberts, 50, braves hungry crocs with Mr Outdoors Bear Grylls, 43, for his brilliant new Running Wild series on Discovery…

Julia’s episode – for American Red Nose Day – sees the actress deliver life-saving vaccines to children in Kenya with adventurer Bear, and begins with Julia shrieking in terror when she has to board a tiny plane.

Dressed down and make-up free, Julia hikes across the baking African plains in a bid to move vital vaccines from a Kenyan children’s hospital to a remote village.

Bear and Julia – mum to twins Hazel and Phinnaeus, 13, and Henry, 10 – hope their assistance on the show will help prevent deaths from rotavirus, pneumonia and polio. Julia has to get the vaccines to their destinations before they get too warm – which involves crossing rough terrain in a jeep, and tackling a river. The only way to cross it was over a rickety rope bridge above a ravine – with crocs lurking below…

Visibly shaken and tearful as she steps off the “bridge”, she tells cameras, “I’m very afraid of heights and always have been... terrifying!” And then comes dinner... “I think pasta is dinner – and Bear thinks a goats’ head is dinner,” Julia laughs. But she’s impressed someone, as Bear himself adds how surprised he was at the Hollywood star’s down-toearth and practical attitude.

He says, “What I love about Julia is she’s pretty tough. Do not be deceived by a pretty face. She was incredibly vulnerable about a lot of stuff in her life and, for me, it’s no surprise she’s out here on a mission to try to get these vaccines to these kids. She’s got a heart and it is a big one.”