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America’s sweetheart can still say she’s “just a girl!” Julia Roberts sat down with Matt Lauer for an interview that aired on the Today show Friday, Aug. 1. During the chat, the Oscar-winning actress opened up about her illustrious career, as well as her life with husband Danny Moder and their three young kids.
“Do they have a full understanding that they’re the children of Julia Roberts?” Lauer asked the world-famous star.
“I think they have a firm understanding that they are children of parents in show business,” Roberts, 46, replied, sharing an anecdote of how her kids, twins Hazel and Phinnaeus, 9, and Henry, 7, were recently upset they couldn’t see their mom star in Disney’s remake of Snow White.
“When Mirror Mirror came out, all of the kids in their class saw it and I wouldn’t let them see it,” she recalled. “So they felt that they were being penalized for being my children.” Roberts, who starred as the evil queen in the film, told her little ones, “Well, I’m not very pleasant in that movie. I don’t want to scare you.”
Roberts added how grateful she was to balance motherhood with acting, especially after having a long and successful career prior to becoming a mother. ” I’m really proud of what I’ve accomplished in my career,” the star reflected. “By [the time I had children] I felt I had really earned staying home with my kids and being with my family.”
She went on to share that the only time she’s left her family to work on a film was for August: Osage County — a role for which she received an Oscar nomination. “It was a decision that was very difficult to make,” she recalled, revealing that pal George Clooney and husband Moder “kept at me” to go for it.
While Roberts has starred in a slew of recent films including HBO’s The Normal Heart, Eat Pray Love, and Osage County, the star revealed that most fans cite 1990 smash rom-com Pretty Woman as their favorite Roberts film. “I kind of go, ‘Another decade, anything?'”
Lauer chimed in and said his favorite scene in the movie was not the memorable bathtub scene, but instead when Roberts’ character Vivian Ward goes shopping for her makeover. Smiling, Roberts recited what may be her most famous line in the film: “Big mistake, big mistake. Huge!”
Lauer then flashed the most poignant scene from her 1999 movie Notting Hill, which she again impressively recalled: “I’m just a girl standing in front of a boy. Asking him to love her.”
A year after that film, Roberts starred in Erin Brockovich in the title role, for which she won a Best Actress Oscar. Asked where the statue was, Roberts replied, “The Oscar is still in my sister’s apartment… I’m gonna go get it and take it home.”
She joked, “It can be Ken’s competition for Barbie’s affection.”
