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It wasn't quite what you'd imagine: Hollywood's most bankable movie star, at home in California, wearing sweaty workout clothes (she'd just finished a yoga class), knitting (a baby blanket for a friend's newborn) and confiding that, "It's tricky to swing dance in a girdle." We'll get back to the girdle. For now let's put it this way: That's Julia Roberts.Fifteen years into a career that started with Mystic Pizza and won her an Oscar as Erin Brockovich, the Pretty Woman star is back with another mind-bending role. In Mona Lisa Smile, out this month, Roberts plays a free-thinking professor of art history who challenges the conservative, altar-bound young women of Wellesley College in the uptight 1950s. Hence the girdle, the only concession to tradition for her rebellious character.
Not bad for a Georgia girl who headed straight to New York City after high school and joined the "grind" -- her word -- to pound out a living as a salesclerk. She paid her dues and today is repeatedly voted America's favorite actress, frequently for roles that help redefine how women can, or should, behave. She has her own production company, and she makes at least $20 million per picture.
Roberts's personal life is also soaring. In July 2002, she married Danny Moder, a cinematographer, whom she credits for her very apparent new sense of comfort.
RD: You've just turned 36. What's the best part about growing older for you?
Roberts: Nothing bothers me. No, everything bothers me. The best part is perspective.
RD: Do you think you've gotten wiser?
Roberts: I married a wise man. Is that getting wiser?
RD: A good marriage?
Roberts: Beyond. A friend of mine asked me recently about being in California: "What do you do out there?" I said, "What do I do? I be married to Danny." Like I actively participate in being married to this man, which isn't only restricted to California, but it's just such a fun thing to get to do.
RD: In Mona Lisa Smile, you're accused of waging a war on marriage. And here you are, Miss Happily Married.
Roberts: It was one of the paradoxes of playing this character because when we started I was a newlywed -- I still had rice in my hair. She's a woman who's not anti-marriage but is pro-independence and concerned -- truly, deeply, tenderly concerned -- that these Wellesley girls are going to throw away so much to simply become housewives. It was a moment when the thing that I believed in most, the focus of my heart, was being a housewife. And it was interesting to play this person who I'm not dissimilar to -- and yet I've kind of morphed into the other side of that coin.
RD: I have read that you actually like cleaning house. Tell me it's not true.
Roberts: Well, it is. This morning my husband went to work and I did laundry. I'm happy to report I'm not anal, but I'm a good housekeeper.
RD: But you don't actually do the vacuuming and stuff? Every day?
Roberts: No, not every day. You don't need to vacuum every day.
RD: Are you telling me you don't have a housekeeper? At any of your houses?
Roberts: No, we don't. If you mess it up, you should clean it up.
RD: And what are you doing tonight? Tell us about the glamorous evening of a Hollywood star and her cinematographer husband.
Roberts: Oh, well, last night we made steaks -- he makes the best steaks. I'm a total meat eater and I don't know how people do all these fabulous diets -- I can't do that. We had big fat steaks and that was great, and watched a movie -- Barbershop.
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