Screen icon Julia Roberts has reigned in La La Land since she was 21, and now? She’s finally a British Vogue cover star. Richard Curtis, director and a dear friend of the star, heads to her London hotel to reveal the many faces of a true Hollywood legend.
" Sometimes I don’t even recognise my face. I think, “What’s that in the mirror?” Looks like a loaf of bread to me.
You don’t look like a loaf of bread.
Well, that’s nice of you to say. Next I want to talk to you about Film Face. I think one of your astonishing qualities is to be completely present in front of the camera, to reveal who you are to it. Are you aware of that when someone says, “Action”?
Well, it’s funny, because my most technical job is to forget where the camera is. It’s the camera’s responsibility to be in the right place for the scene. That’s not my job. I do think that is a thing that kind of separates actors from non-actors – being able to find the camera, but for it to have no conscious consequence. It doesn’t scare me, it doesn’t comfort me. It’s the documentarian of whatever I’m doing.
So you’re really living in that moment. Even though the camera is watching. I mean, you weren’t trained as an actor…
No, and I still envy people I work with who are very technical. I find it really fascinating, and I envy it so much. There’s so many different ways to approach it.
I think that technique might sometimes get in the way for other people – because you were bringing more of yourself and less craft to it. More joy, more romanticism? America would not have voted you their sweetheart 30 years ago if they didn’t think they were getting something special from you that they weren’t getting from other people…
I think it’s dangerous to overanalyse these things. But I will say that I think there’s something in me that’s always [let] people feel they’re comfortable, or they see something familiar. If someone sees me in a grocery store and they say, “Why did you cut your hair like that?” it’s not because they’re trying to be rude. It’s because they feel they know me, that I sit behind them
in church every Sunday. It’s that sense of feeling that you understand someone that you don’t know. I guess looking relatively like myself in most parts takes me out of the character-actor lane. But I never feel like I’m playing myself.
Yeah, well, I agree with that.
And honestly, one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do was your movie [Notting Hill, 1999], playing a movie actress. I was so uncomfortable! I mean, we’ve talked about this so many times, but I almost didn’t take the part because it just seemed – oh, it just seemed so awkward. I didn’t even know how to play that person".
You can read her complete interview on British Vogue website or get the February Edition.
More photos below.
Comments
Post a Comment