Pe numele său adevărat Julia Fiona Roberts s-a născut în Atlanta, Georgia, fiica lui Betty Lou și Walter Grandy Roberts. Părinții săi au fost baptiști și catolici și ea a crescut în religia romano-catolică. Fratele său mai mare, cu care a fost certată o perioadă, Eric Roberts și sora sa Lisa Roberts Gillan sunt amândoi actori. Părinții săi au fost actori și ei, dar și scenariști, au fondat Școala de Actorie din Atlanta. În cadrul grupei de copii, ei au lucrat inclusiv cu micuțul lui Martin Luther King. În semn de mulțumire, acesta i-a plătit acesteia spitalizarea atunci când a născut-o pe micușa Julia. Pentru că părinții au divorțat în 1971, Julia Roberts s-a mutat într-o suburbie a Atlantei. Tatăl ei însă a decedat când ea avea doar zece ani. În acest timp, mama ei se recăsătorise deja cu Michael Motes, cu care au avut încă o fiică, Nancy Motes.
În școală, Julia Roberts a cântat la clarinet într-o formație. Visul ei de copil a fost sa devină veterinar, dar după terminarea liceului, frații săi au convins-o să urmeze o carieră în actorie. Mai întâi s-a înscris la o agenție de modele, iar în curând avea să devină actrița celebră din Pretty Woman.
Julia Fiona Roberts (born October 28, 1967) is an American actress. She became a Hollywood star after headlining the 1990's romantic comedy Pretty Woman, which grossed $464 million worldwide. After receiving Academy Award nominations for Steel Magnolias in 1990 and Pretty Woman in 1991, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2001 for her performance in Erin Brockovich. Her films My Best Friend's Wedding, Mystic Pizza, Notting Hill, Runaway Bride, Valentine's Day, The Pelican Brief, Ocean's Eleven and Twelve have collectively brought box office receipts of over $2.4 billion, making her one of the most successful actors in terms of box office receipts.
Roberts had become one of the highest-paid actresses in the world, topping the Hollywood Reporter's annual "power list" of top-earning female stars from 2005 to 2006. Her fee for 1990's Pretty Woman was $300,000;[citation needed] in 2003, she was paid an unprecedented $25 million for her role in Mona Lisa Smile. As of 2010, Roberts's net worth was estimated to be $140 million.
Roberts has been named one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People in the World" eleven times, tied with Halle Berry. In 2001, Ladies Home Journal ranked her as the 11th most powerful woman in America, ahead of then national security advisor Condoleezza Rice and former first lady Laura Bush. Roberts has a production company called Red Om Films, formerly Shoelace Productions, whose name is "Moder" (her husband's last name) spelled backwards, as well as a reference to the sacred Om symbol in Hinduism, which Roberts practices. Her brother Eric Roberts, sister Lisa Roberts Gillan and niece Emma Roberts, are also actors.
Roberts made her first big screen appearance in the film Satisfaction, released on February 12, 1988. She had previously performed a small role opposite her brother, Eric, in Blood Red (she has two words of dialogue), filmed in 1987 and released in 1989. Her first television appearance was as a juvenile rape victim in the initial season of the series Crime Story with Dennis Farina, in the episode titled "The Survivor", broadcast on February 13, 1987. Her first critical success with moviegoers was her performance in the independent film Mystic Pizza in 1988; that same year, she had a role in the fourth season finale of Miami Vice. The following year, she was featured in Steel Magnolias as a young bride with diabetes and got her first Academy Award nomination (as Best Supporting Actress) for her performance.
Roberts became known to worldwide audiences when she co-starred with Richard Gere in the Cinderella/Pygmalionesque story Pretty Woman in 1990. Roberts won the role after the first three choices for the part, Molly Ringwald, Meg Ryan and Daryl Hannah (her co-star in Steel Magnolias), all turned it down.The role also earned her a second Oscar nomination, this time as Best Actress. Her next box office success was the thriller Sleeping with the Enemy, playing a battered wife who escapes her demented 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. This work was followed by a two-year hiatus, during which she made no films other than a cameo appearance in Robert Altman's The Player (1992). In early 1993, she was the subject of a People magazine cover story asking, "What Happened to Julia Roberts?" She was offered the role of Annie Reed in the 1993 Sleepless in Seattle but turned it down.
In 1993, she co-starred with Denzel Washington in The Pelican Brief, based on the John Grisham novel. She also starred alongside Liam Neeson in the 1996 film Michael Collins. In 1995, she appeared in season 2 of Friends (episode 13 "The One After the Superbowl"). She was offered the role of Lucy Eleanor Moderatz in the 1995 While You Were Sleeping but also turned it down.
Over the next few years, she starred in a series of films that were critical and commercial failures, such as Stephen Frears' Mary Reilly (1996). Roberts overcame these failures with the commercial and critical success of My Best Friend's Wedding in 1997. In 1998, she appeared on Sesame Street opposite the character Elmo, demonstrating her ability to change emotions. She was offered the role of Viola de Lesseps in the 1998 Shakespeare in Love but turned it down.[14] She starred with Hugh Grant in the 1999 film Notting Hill. That same year, she also starred in Runaway Bride, her second film with Richard Gere. Roberts was a guest star on the Law & Order television series episode "Empire" with series regular Benjamin Bratt (at that time her boyfriend). Also in 1999, she starred in the critically panned film Stepmom alongside Susan Sarandon.
In 2001, Roberts received the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Erin Brockovich, who helped wage a successful lawsuit against energy giant Pacific Gas & Electric. While presenting the Best Actor Award to Denzel Washington the following year, she made a gaffe, saying she was glad that Tom Conti wasn't there. She meant the conductor Bill Conti, who had tried to hasten the conclusion of her Oscar speech the previous year, but instead named the Scottish actor.[citation needed] Roberts would team up with Erin Brockovich director Steven Soderbergh for three more films: Ocean's Eleven (2001), Full Frontal (2002), and Ocean's Twelve (2004). Later in 2001, she starred in the road gangster comedy The Mexican giving her a chance to work with longtime friend Brad Pitt. In 2005, she was featured in the music video for the hit single "Dreamgirl" by the Dave Matthews Band.
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. Her next film was Charlie Wilson's War, with Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman, directed by Mike Nichols and based on the book by former CBS journalist George Crile; it was released on December 21, 2007. Fireflies in the Garden, also starring Ryan Reynolds and Willem Dafoe, was released at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2008.
Roberts made her Broadway debut on April 19, 2006 as Nan in a revival of Richard Greenberg's 1997 play Three Days of Rain opposite Bradley Cooper and Paul Rudd. Although the play grossed nearly US$1 million dollars in ticket sales during its first week[16] and was a commercial success throughout its limited run, her performance drew criticism. New York Times' critic Ben Brantly described her as being fraught with "self-consciousness (especially in the first act) [and] only glancingly acquainted with the two characters she plays." Brantley also criticized the production of "Greenberg's slender, elegant play," writing that “it's almost impossible to discern its artistic virtues from this wooden and splintered interpretation, directed by Joe Mantello." Three Days of Rain received two Tony Award nominations in stage design categories. In 2009, Lancôme announced that Julia Roberts will become their global ambassador for their company. Roberts starred with Clive Owen in the comedy-thriller Duplicity for which she received her seventh Golden Globe nomination. In 2010, she appeared in the ensemble romantic comedy Valentine's Day, with Bradley Cooper, and starred in the film adaptation of Eat Pray Love.
Eat Pray Love had the highest debut at the box office for Roberts in a top-billed role since America's Sweethearts.
