The Secret Life of Julia Roberts

The megastar’s carefully controlled career means that Hollywood fame hasn’t come at the cost of her family life.

...she's boring—at least in the eyes of the paparazzi.

Julia Roberts leads a pretty quiet existence for a woman at the top of Hollywood’s A-list. A decade ago, the 47-year-old actor gave birth to twins Phinnaeus and Hazel. Since then, she has limited herself to working on just one movie a year—sometimes two, if it’s a supporting part or voice work. She has chosen to spend the majority of her time in the role of mom. Now a mother of three (she and cameraman husband Danny Moder had their third child, Henry, in 2007), Roberts comes across as determined as ever to give her kids a childhood free of photo ops.

Sure, Roberts is visible—just this side of ubiquitous even, where the business of promotion is concerned. She makes annual appearances at the Oscars, the Emmys, and the Golden Globes. She pops in to see Ellen and jokes around with Jimmy Fallon whenever she has a new project to promote. (She's currently on an indefinite hiatus after wrapping the 2014 HBO movie The Normal Heart.) But we don't see Roberts hauling her kids through a string of international airports à la Brangelina, or on a publicity-friendly family outing to the farmers market like the Garner/Affleck clan. She has gone down the same route former co-star and fellow A-Lister Matt Damon took when it comes to constructing a public persona: she's boring—at least in the eyes of the paparazzi.

There was a time when Roberts’ tumultuous dating life drew a good deal of media attention...

It wasn’t always this way. There was a time when Roberts’ tumultuous dating life drew a good deal of media attention, but it looks like her recent efforts to appear humdrum are working for her. The star recounts a time when her family was visiting Toronto and some passersby recognized her on the street. “Yeah, my mom’s Julia Robinson,” her seven-year-old son announced to no one in particular, sweetly bungling her boldface name and demonstrating a largely unspoiled innocence when it comes to the celebrity industrial complex in which his mother has been ensconced for more than 25 years.
A concerted effort to be boring is a strategy that can be employed only by a star acutely aware of her own worth. Boring is not for the attention-starved celeb afraid that a week without a tabloid cover story signals a fall from the pinnacle of fame. Roberts has no fear—and for good reason. Since her breakout performance in the 1988 movie Mystic Pizza, her movies have totalled a staggering $2.6 billion at the box office, making her one of the most financially successful actors of all time. This affords her, among other things, enough leverage to stay out of the media spotlight’s often-unflattering glare.

“I think there is a dehumanization that goes with fame, especially in the present culture of it, which isn't the culture I started off in,” she told the Wall Street Journal in an interview last spring. “There wasn't this analysis of every iota of every moment of every day. Nobody cared about what you wore, nobody cared what haircut you had, if you had on makeup or didn’t.” Now, she says of the star-stalking celebrity media, “it’s become this sort of sport.”

Director John Wells captures the woman once billed as “America’s Sweetheart” at her un-sweetest.

In stark contrast to Roberts’ seemingly stable home life and carefully controlled public image is the domestic drama she wades through in August: Osage County, her most recent theatrical release. Director John Wells’ screen adaptation of Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer- and Tony Award-winning play captures the woman once billed as “America’s Sweetheart” at her un-sweetest. (Except maybe for that time in the early ’00s when she wore a handmade "A Low Vera" T-shirt, using the paparazzi to send a message to Moder’s allegedly reluctant-to-divorce ex, makeup artist Vera Steimberg.)

In the film she plays Barbara, the favourite daughter of a suddenly departed father, and rival to a drug-abusing, cancer-stricken mother (Meryl Streep). The movie also features Juliette Lewis, Law and Order: Criminal Intent's Julianne Nicholson, Margo Martindale, Benedict Cumberbatch, and a lovable, scene-stealing Chris Cooper. (The surfeit of star power on display led New York Times critic A.O. Scott to call the film a “thespian cage match.”)

The August: Osage County Roberts is a different one from we’re used to—a movie star stripped down, adorned by very little makeup, and clad in frumpy pyjamas for a good chunk of the film.
Streaks of grey are visible in her hair. Her wide-mouth grin doesn’t get so much as a cameo. The absence of Barbara’s father has left her with a burden he never seemed to carry: a perceived obligation to call bullshit on everything she sees and hears, especially when it comes to her mother. Her character is angry and exhausted and it shows on the actor’s face, resulting in one of those rare moments where we can almost forget that we’re watching Julia Roberts.

Could it be that her kid was on to something? In this film, maybe it’s Julia Robinson we’re seeing instead.

Julia Roberts Knows the Secret to Marital Bliss

The usually private Julia Roberts opened up yesterday about how she keeps her marriage hot. Roberts legally wed cinematographer Danny Moder 13 years ago; like many marrieds, the couple has spawned children. While celebrity status may guarantee a great date-night reservation, it also renders relationships prone to excessive drama and rapid dissolution.

Visiting EXTRA to promote her latest film, Roberts offered insight into how to avoid the pitfalls of being married while famous. Host Mario Lopez congratulated Roberts on the double-digit anniversary before asking what advice she’d give other famous couples. “I don’t know,” she said, before revealing that she did, in fact, know all along: “probably kissing.” It’s a tip that’s relevant to normal people too. “I don't think it’s exclusive to entertainment couples, I wouldn’t even think of us as an entertainment couple,” she said.

Though Hugh Grant revealed that he was “aware of a faint echo when kissing her” in Notting Hill, Roberts hasn’t let her large mouth get in the way of locking lips. But, she does have a well-documented love-hate relationship to kissing. In 2011, she said she felt “swoony” and “got all giggly” when kissing Tom Hanks while filming the movie Larry Crowne. (Hanks said, “It is one whammy kiss. She was the 'wham,' and I was the 'me.'”) In 2014, James Franco revealed that Roberts “didn't even want to do the kissing scenes.” Turning things around, she gave Richard Gere a kiss on the lips to celebrate Pretty Woman’s 25th anniversary this spring.

If her tip seems boring because it is, Roberts's answer is also indicative of how things roll in the Roberts-Moder household. Roberts revealed that she recently celebrated her 48th birthday by going out to breakfast with her husband. Next, she said, “[M]y girlfriends came over and we played mahjong all day.”

Julia Roberts on her most heart-shattering scene in Secret in Their Eyes

Julia Roberts is an Oscar-winning actress, but even she was stretched to her limit for Secret in Their Eyes. The new film, from director Billy Ray, stars Roberts as a FBI investigator whose world is shattered when an unidentified teenage girl who was killed and left in a dumpster is revealed to be her daughter.

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“It was definitely not a day I looked forward to. You can’t prepare for that in the way you do other scenes,” Roberts says in a new feature about the scene in which her character, Jess, finds out about her child.

Roberts is a parent herself, and her connection to the material was further pushed by the presence of her husband, Danny Moder, who served as cinematographer on the film. “It was harder on him because he’s shooting and in the dumpster, and I’m his wife,” Roberts says of the scene. “It’s crazy.”

Costarring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Nicole Kidman, Secret in Their Eyes is out on Nov. 20 via STX Entertainment. Watch the heartbreaking moment when Roberts’ Jess has her entire life changed in the exclusive video above.

Julia Roberts Finally Addresses Half-Sister Nancy Motes' Suicide: "It's Hour By Hour Some Days"

Julia Roberts finally talks about her half-sister Nancy Motes' suicide, which she says is hard to discuss "outside the weepy huddle of my family."

Julia Roberts opens up for the first time since the death of her half sister, Nancy Motes, in a new interview published Monday, April 21. The Oscar winner tells WSJ. Magazine how the family is grappling with Motes' February suicide at age 37.

"It's hour by hour some days, but you just keep looking ahead," Roberts, 46, tells WSJ. "You don't want anything bad to happen to anyone, but there are so many tragic, painful, inexplicable things in the world."

PHOTOS: Julia's best movie roles

Roberts' half-sister Motes was found dead on Feb. 9, of an apparent drug overdose in L.A. Later, a suicide note was discovered at the scene, along with prescription and nonprescription drugs. Nancy's relationship with America's sweetheart appeared to be tense leading up to her death. In October 2013, Motes tweeted a cryptic message stating that she couldn't wait to "belong to another family." Refuting speculation over the tweet, Motes' fiance John Dilbeck released a statement on Feb. 13, that said Nancy "loved her family."

The Pretty Woman star—sister to actor Eric Roberts and aunt to Emma Roberts—adds in her new interview: "But [as with] any situation of challenge and despair, we must find a way, as a family." The Georgia native adds of Motes' death, "It's so hard to formulate a sentence about it outside the weepy huddle of my family."

PHOTOS: Julia Roberts' style through the years

In her next role, Roberts plays a doctor in upcoming HBO film, The Normal Heart, who treats patients affected by HIV and AIDS in the early 1980s at the terrifying beginning of the global epidemic. Normal Heart director Ryan Murphy tells WSJ that working with the acclaimed actress was daunting before he got to know her. "My first couple of days I was terrified," he says. "She is part of the royalty of Hollywood. But it was like butter. She was so easy and accommodating and egoless."

On her superstardom, Roberts confesses, "I don't consider myself a celebrity, [at least not] how it is fostered in our culture today." Married to cameraman Danny Moder since 2002, she gushes about being so fortunate to enjoy motherhood and a successful career. "By the time we had kids, I had accomplished things and felt secure about that part of my life. I was so joyful moving into the family phase of my life in a sincere way," Roberts says.

PHOTOS: Celebrity siblings

"We're just grateful for the sense we have of being like any other family down the street," she adds. "I don't question it."

The latest issue of WSJ. Magazine hits newsstands Saturday, May 3.

Woman, 37, taunted as Julia Roberts' 'fat little half-sister' dies of apparent drug overdose... 20 months after gastric bypass surgery

Julia Roberts' half-sister Nancy Motes died on Sunday in Los Angeles.

On Monday, her family confirmed to People the 37-year-old had passed away in what appears to be an overdose.

'It is with deep sadness that the family of Nancy Motes ... confirms that she was found dead in Los Angeles yesterday of an apparent drug overdose,' the statement read. 'There is no official report from the Coroner's office yet. The family is both shocked and devastated.'

She was discovered in the bathroom of her home by her fiancé John Dilbeck and pronounced dead at 2:12 p.m., a spokesman for the Los Angeles Coroner's Office told MailOnline.

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Gone too soon: Nancy Motes, pictured in August (left), died on Sunday from an apparent drug overdose; she is the half-sister of Julia Roberts (right)

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Family: Roberts with Motes and their mother Betty Lou when the star was filming 1997's My Best Friend's Wedding

She is currently undergoing an autopsy to determine cause of death. Toxicology results will likely take 6-8 weeks to get back. 

Julia's rep did not return calls to MailOnline.

Julia and Nancy had the same mother, Betty Lou, but different fathers: Nancy's dad was Michael Motes and Julia's is the late Walter Grady Roberts.

In August the blonde had complained about growing up in the shadow of the Pretty Woman star, who has been working the awards circuit this year for her turn in August: Osage County with Meryl Streep.

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Back when: Julia is seen here stepping out with Nancy in 2006 on a cold day shopping in New York

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Larger: Nancy, pictured left and right prior to weight-loss surgery, said she was taunted by her family because of her weight

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So much to live for: The Glee production assistant with her fiancé John Dilbeck in 2013

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Still a smashing success: At 46, Roberts is more in demand than ever; here she leaves a talk about her Meryl Streep drama on February 4

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On top: The actress on the February cover of Vanity Fair, on stands now

The younger sibling had said she was known as Julia's 'fat little sister' and said the Oscar-winner had taunted her about her weight, leading her to undergo weight loss surgery in June 2012.

Roberts, 46, made her feel embarrassed and ashamed of her weight, according to Nancy, which peaked at 20st.

She resorted to a £20,000 gastric bypass operation last year.

'It makes me feel incredibly hurt and very sad,' Motes said. 'When you're in a family of very, very exceptionally beautiful people it's intimidating.'

Her other siblings include Eric Roberts, 57, and Lisa Roberts Gillan, 48, who are also actors. 

Actress Emma Roberts is the daughter of Eric.

'I think that growing up as Pretty Woman's little sister has definitely made me try to see the person inside and not the person outside,' she added. 'A lot of my life I felt judged for my weight.'

Motes, who grew up in the US state of Georgia, was only 13 when Roberts shot to Hollywood fame as hooker Vivian Ward in Pretty Woman.

The actress, who had won a Golden Globe for playing a young bride in Steel Magnolias, received a second for Pretty Woman. 

Motes, who described herself as an 'awkward' child who was bullied at school, could not compete with the success of her 'very pretty and very popular' sister.

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Thinner: Nancy Motes looked considerably thinner in August 2013 as she grabbed coffee near her home in Santa Monica

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New life: Three years ago Nancy, pictured right with Julia, moved back to Los Angeles from Georgia, after meeting her fiancé John Dilbeck. But she claimed Roberts started bullying her about her weight again days after she arrived

She said: 'When I was in high school and she was an adult, she would just let me know that I was definitely overweight. She would make it quite clear to me and in a not so nice manner.

'Julia did not want to see me go down that path [of acting] … So I just got a lot of criticism from Julia, which was very discouraging for me.'

After graduating from high school in 1995, Motes auditioned for roles in Hollywood while working as a waitress. But she could not afford to continue so returned to Georgia.

Three years ago Nancy moved back to Los Angeles, after meeting her fiancé John Dilbeck. But she claimed Roberts started taunting her about her weight again days after she arrived. 

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Busy woman: Roberts has been working the awards circuit for her turn in August: Osage County, which she did here on January 18 while attending the Screen Actors Guild Awards

Another scene from the film Pretty Woman opposite Richard Gere, where she inspects a diamond studded necklace

With her weight soaring, she finally decided to have a gastric bypass fitted.

Motes said she could not afford the £20,000 fee, but rather than ask Roberts, who is worth £90million, for financial help, she took out a loan.

She had lost 7st since the operation last June and had planned on marrying in May.

However, RadarOnline reported last year that Julia planned to boycott the nuptials because she didn't like the groom and didn't want to get stuck paying for the wedding.

'Julia doesn't think much of Nancy's husband-to-be,' the website quoted an insider as saying. 'She's convinced he's sponging off Nancy, who doesn't have much money in the first place.'

At the time of her death, it was not known if she had mended her relationship with Julia.

She said last year: 'It's a work in progress, it's not going to be fixed overnight, nor do I think it's going to be fixed by me just getting skinny.'

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Niece: Emma Roberts, pictured Monday with Evan Peters, was Nancy's niece

Julia Roberts

Julia Roberts, in full Julia Fiona Roberts   (born October 28, 1967, Smyrna,Georgia, U.S.), American actress whose deft performances in varied roles helped make her one of the highest-paid and most-influential actresses in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Although her parents briefly ran an actors’ workshop when she was a child, Roberts had no acting experience or formal training when she moved to New York City after high school to pursue a career in show business. Although she signed with a modeling agency upon her arrival, she failed to land any jobs. Her first film role turned up after she was recommended by her older brother, actor Eric Roberts, for a bit part as his on-screen sister in Blood Red (1989), a drama set in the late 1800s; although the film was completed in 1986, its release was delayed for several years. She next made several television appearances before securing her first leading part in Mystic Pizza (1988). Her career took off after she was cast in Steel Magnolias (1989), which featured such veteran actresses as Shirley MacLaine, Olympia Dukakis, and Sally Field. Roberts received an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress for her heartrending portrayal of Field’s diabetic daughter. In 1990 she starred in Pretty Woman, an upbeat comedy about a romance between a prostitute and a business tycoon, played by Richard Gere. A huge hit, it made Roberts a household name and earned her a second Academy Award nomination.

Roberts continued to work steadily throughout the 1990s, starring in Flatliners (1990), Sleeping with the Enemy (1991), The Pelican Brief (1993), Something to Talk About (1995), Mary Reilly (1996), My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997), and Stepmom (1998), for which she also served as executive producer. Her personal life at times overshadowed her professional career, however, as when her highly publicized marriage to singer Lyle Lovett abruptly ended in 1995. In 1999 Roberts starred in two popular romantic comedies, Notting Hill and Runaway Bride, the latter of which again paired her with Gere.

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. The film portrayed the real-life story of a law-office clerk who helped the citizens of a California town win a multimillion-dollar settlement against a utility company for health problems caused by the company’s pollution of their drinking water. For her performance, Roberts won an Academy Award for best actress. She later starred opposite Brad Pitt,George Clooney, and Matt Damon in the blockbuster comedy Ocean’s Eleven (2001) and its sequelOcean’s Twelve (2004). She also appeared in the relationship drama Closer (2004).

In 2006 Roberts supplied the voice for the spider Charlotte in the animated film adaptation of E.B. White’s beloved children’s book Charlotte’s Web. 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; and the romantic comedyValentine’s Day (2010).

After starring in Eat Pray Love (2010), which was adapted from Elizabeth Gilbert’s best-selling memoir of the same name, Roberts, playing a community-college professor, reteamed with Hanks in Larry Crowne (2011). 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. She then assumed the role of a doctor assisting gay men during the early years of the AIDS crisis in New York City in The Normal Heart (2014), a television adaptation of Larry Kramer’s play.

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.

Julia Roberts’ Sister Attacks Family in Suicide Note

Weinstein Company Via Everett Collection

Julia Roberts’ half-sister was consumed by depression brought on by family angst when she chose to end her life in February (14), according to the suicide note she left for her fiance.

Nancy Motes, 37, passed away after taking a drug overdose and now, in a bitter handwritten note obtained by editors at MailOnline.com, she’s pointing the finger at family members.

She wrote, “My mother and siblings drove me into the deepest depression. I’ve suffered thru (sic) this disease all my life, however it has never been this bad. I burst into tears every morning (because) I woke up.”

The Los Angeles County coroner ruled Motes killed herself by taking a variety of drugs.

Her body was discovered on 9 February (14) by her fiance, John Dilbeck. Calling him her “one true love”, she wrote, “I know this will effect (sic) you the most & I can’t apologize enough. I was truly blessed & lucky to have you as my true love and best friend. I will carry you with me forever.”

Motes’ famous sister pulled out of a series of awards season appearances in February (14) after Motes died. The actress opened up about the loss in a Wall Street Journal Magazine interview, revealing she was heartbroken by the tragedy.

She said, “There aren’t words to explain what any of us have been through in these last 20 days. It’s hour by hour some days, but you just keep looking ahead.”

“You don’t want anything bad to happen to anyone, but there are so many tragic, painful, inexplicable things in the world. But (as with) any situation of challenge and despair, we must find a way, as a family. It’s so hard to formulate a sentence about it outside the weepy huddle of my family.”