Julia Roberts is an American actress and producer.
Her full name is Julia Fiona Roberts.
She was born on October 28, 1967, in Smyrna, Georgia.
Her father, Walter Grady Roberts, and her mother, Betty Lou Bredemus, were both actors who ran a workshop for aspiring writers and performers.
Julia has an older brother Eric and an older sister Lisa – they are also actors.
She is of English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, German, and Swedish descent.
After graduating from Smyrna’s Campbell High School, Roberts studied journalism although she never completed her degree.
When her brother, Eric Roberts, achieved success in Hollywood, Julia decided to try acting.
Roberts made her first big screen appearance in the film Satisfaction (1988), alongside Liam Neeson and Justine Bateman, as a band member looking for a summer gig.
She had previously performed a small role opposite her brother, Eric, in Blood Red (she has two words of dialogue), filmed in 1987, although it was only released in 1989.
She next made several television appearances before securing her first leading part, in Mystic Pizza (1988).
Her career took off after her performance in Steel Magnolias (1989), as a young bride with diabetes, and received both her first Academy Award nomination (as Best Supporting Actress) and first Golden Globe Award win (Motion Picture Best Supporting Actress) for her performance.
Roberts became known to worldwide audiences when she starred with Richard Gere in Pretty Woman, in 1990. The role also earned her a second Oscar nomination, this time as Best Actress, and second Golden Globe Award win, as Motion Picture Best Actress (Musical or Comedy).
Her next box office success was the thriller Sleeping with the Enemy (1991), playing a battered wife who escapes her abusive husband, played by Patrick Bergin, and begins a new life in Iowa.
She played Tinkerbell in Steven Spielberg’s Hook in 1991, and also played a nurse in the 1991 film, Dying Young.
After taking a break from film, Roberts landed another big hit with the thriller The Pelican Brief (1993), co-starring Denzel Washington.
Roberts continued to work steadily throughout sacond half in the 1990s, starring in Michael Collins (1996), Mary Reilly (1996), My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997), Stepmom (1998), Notting Hill (1999) and Runaway Bride (1999).
In 2000 Roberts launched her own production company, Shoelace Productions, and that same year she commanded $20 million for her starring role in Erin Brockovich. In 2001, Roberts received the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Erin Brockovich. Roberts’ acceptance speech for the award went over the allowed time limit but did not mention the real-life Brockovich, for which Roberts later apologized, saying she forgot.
The following year, Roberts starred in the road gangster comedy The Mexican with Brad Pitt and James Gandolfini.
Later in 2001, she starred in the romantic comedy America’s Sweethearts along with Billy Crystal, John Cusack, and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
In fall 2001, Roberts teamed with Erin Brockovich director Steven Soderbergh for Ocean’s Eleven, a comedy-crime caper film and remake of the 1960 Rat Pack film of the same name, featuring an ensemble cast including George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and Andy Garcia.
In 2003, Roberts was cast in Mike Newell’s drama film Mona Lisa Smile, also starring Kirsten Dunst, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Julia Stiles. Roberts received a record US$25 million for her portrayal of a forward-thinking art history professor at Wellesley College in 1953 – the highest ever earned by an actress until then.
In 2004, Roberts took on an emotionally challenging part in Mike Nichols’s Closer, a romantic drama film written by Patrick Marber, based on his award-winning 1997 play of the same name. The film also starred Jude Law, Natalie Portman, and Clive Owen.
Also in 2004, she reprised the role of Tess Ocean in the sequel Ocean’s Twelve.
Roberts had two films released in 2006: The Ant Bully and Charlotte’s Web. Both films were animated features for which she provided voice acting. That year she made her Broadway debut in Three Days of Rain, earning mixed reviews.
Roberts next appeared with Tom Hanks in Charlie Wilson’s War (2007), a film based on true events surrounding the U.S. government’s involvement in the Afghan resistance to the Soviets in the 1980s.
Her subsequent movies include the family drama Fireflies in the Garden (2008); Duplicity (2009), in which she played a corporate spy; the romantic comedy Valentine’s Day (2010); and in the drama Eat Pray Love (2010) — a film adaptation of the bestselling book by Elizabeth Gilbert.
In 2011 she starred with Tom Hanks in the romantic comedy Larry Crowne, about a man who reinvents himself after experiencing a midlife crisis.
In Mirror Mirror (2012), a comedic version of the Snow White tale, she inhabited the role of the evil queen.
She crossed swords with Meryl Streep – who played her savagely critical mother — in the family drama August: Osage County (2013), based on the play by Tracy Letts; the role earned Roberts an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress.
In 2014, Roberts gave an impressive performance on the small screen. She appeared in the drama The Normal Heart with Mark Ruffalo, Matt Bomer and Jim Parsons.
In 2015 Roberts co-starred opposite Nicole Kidman and Chiwetel Ejiofor in the police thriller Secret in Their Eyes.
In Jodie Foster’s Wall Street thriller Money Monster (2016), her character is the producer of a financial advice show who is taken hostage along with the host (Clooney) and their crew.
In 2016, she also starred in the film Mother’s Day.
In June 2017, Roberts announced she will be starring in a limited series for HBO, based on the Maria Semple novel, Today Will Be Different.
Roberts has won three Golden Globe Awards (out of eight nominations) and has been nominated for four Academy Awards for her film acting, winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Erin Brockovich (2000).
Roberts was the highest-paid actress in the world throughout most of the 1990s and in the first halfof the 2000s.
Julia Roberts has an estimated net worth of $140 million.
Roberts reportedly had romantic relationships with actors Jason Patric, Liam Neeson, Kiefer Sutherland, Dylan McDermott, Matthew Perry and Benjamin Bratt.
On June 25, 1993, she married country singer Lyle Lovett; They separated in March 1995 andsubsequently divorced.
On July 4, 2002, Roberts married cameraman Danny Moder at her ranch in Taos, New Mexico. Together, they have three children: twins Hazel Patricia and Phinnaeus “Finn” Walter Moder (born 2004) and son, Henry Daniel Moder (born 2007).
Roberts disclosed in a 2010 interview for Elle magazine that she believes in and practices Hinduism.
Throughout her career, Roberts lent her support to numerous charitable organizations, including UNICEF and the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund.
In order to raise awareness for threatened species of wildlife, she narrated the documentary In the Wild: Orangutans with Julia Roberts (1998), and for Wild Horses of Mongolia (2000) she lived with Mongolian nomads for several weeks; both programs appeared on American television.
In 1996, she appeared in season 2 of Friends (episode 13 “The One After the Superbowl”). She had a relationship with cast member Matthew Perry at the time.
In 1999 Roberts was a guest star on the Law & Order television series episode “Empire” with series regular Benjamin Bratt (at that time her boyfriend). She earned a nomination for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series.
She has been named People magazine’s “World’s Most Beautiful Woman” a record five times.
After George Clooney and Brad Pitt found out that she was going to be joining them in Ocean’s Eleven (2001), they sent her a card that read “We heard that you get 20 per film” and in it was a $20 bill; the joke was that she reportedly gets $20 million per film.
Roberts insured her smile for thirty million dollars.
A 9000 year old female skeleton excavated in Bulgaria in November 2004, was called by the archaeologists “Julia Roberts” because of the perfect teeth it had. They said that woman would have
had a perfect smile – just like the actress.
Roberts is a fan of Manchester United FC. She has attended matches in Manchester and visited with theteam at training camp in California on a preseason tour of the US in 2017.
One of her favorite hobbies is knitting.