Julia Roberts: “At home nobody calls me Julia Roberts!”

Julia Roberts is back on the big screen with:” Ben is Back” (December 7^th) and with the TV series: “Homecoming”. She opens about her family, her career and politics.

Was it difficult to put yourself into this role?

Julia Roberts: It wasn’t more difficult than any role I portrayed in other stories. I had an immediate and close connection with Kathryn and Lucas (her children in the movie). I think that was definitely helpful for me to have that sense of love with them. Fortunately, they were both away from their mom, so I was kind of able to feel that there was a space for me in that sense. It was a unique and special time. Someday all the kids from the movie were in my room watching TV. They were all these unique moments that presented themselves that we benefited as people but also to translate in our parts for this job.

What was the most unexpected scene to shoot?

Julia Roberts: That scene with the doctor is interesting because I remember when I came to the set that day and I met those two actors, very nice people but they were elderly and kind looking and I thought since it was a hard scene :”that doesn’t do anything for me. I was expecting just a contemporary couple but it’s clever really because the devil doesn’t have a pitchfork. And the family in this beautiful house, you don’t know what there behind the walls with all those Christmas lights. Unfortunately, there are too many doctors that are too free with prescriptions and also a lot of irresponsible hands that it passes through before it gets to that point. But there are so many problems to the level of the devastation that causes it.

How was to shoot the scene when you try to save your kid?

Julia Roberts: That was so important. That was probably the hardest day for me to see Lucas in that stage, it was horrible.

Did you have a direct knowledge of people who have been suffering addiction?

Julia Roberts: At my age of course, you know a family member, a neighbor, someone you went to school with, it’s everywhere.

Is that scary thinking that even your family could get in touch with drugs?

Julia Roberts: I think it’ such a prevalent problem now but if we as parent as family in this 21^st century get so overwhelmed by the very many things that can happen to anyone of us including our children then we sit in our room with door lock

https://youtu.be/j7ckCekdGr8

Do you think your interpretation would have been as powerful if you hadn’t been a mother?

Julia Roberts: Of course the actor may want to say my performance would be just  as interesting if I weren’t a parent but I’m sure it wouldn’t be because that does change and inform who you are and how you relate to the entire word differently. And if it doesn’t do that then you should probably send them back

Do you think unconditional love for a kid or a relative is worth jeopardizing your relation with the rest of you family: spouse, parents, other kids?

Julia Roberts: I don’t think unconditional love is logical. I don’t think there is a clarity, a linear thought like:”if I do this then I’m scarifying all these other things. It doesn’t exist in those compartments of thought.

What is it about women and mothers that make them so much more forgiving than husbands and father?

Julia Roberts: Haven’t never been a husband or father, that is a very difficult question to answer. I think it depends on the person, if you are a forgiving person, if you are open and have the ability to repair things and move forward. Forgiveness is a complicated emotion, deeply complicated.

The movie pinpoints an important issue: the lack of help from the government in the Us to help people who needs to go to rehab. In France and other countries, the health insurance covers that part?

Julia Roberts: That was an important issue in the Obamacare that was so innovative was that it put in to place a complete infrastructure to help people that had addictions problems, so people could go to rehab and insurance could take care of this. And of course, what happens is that people get their hands on it, they just turn it to a money making thing where they people that really needed help are in fact now in greater parole because their desperation is now being used as littles games for people to make a profit from their suffering. And it was so shocking for me when it was revealed and discovered that this is finally an incredible opportunity for healthcare in our country and it gets really, absolutely, systematically destroyed by people to make profit. Unfortunately a lot of the pharmaceutical companies, it’s a big business, one of the beautiful thing about a film like this is that it takes the epidemics from being statistics endless about not millions of people, it’s everyone for one thing, it’s a simple family in this movie beautiful girl who’s life is affected, a mother who is struggling to keep her family together. It is humanizing it in a way and sharing it a way that show it’s really happening and it’s happening everywhere. So to make it not so much numbers on the page but more people who are desperately trying to find solutions it’s important.

Do you get many parts and offers of that caliber now days?

Julia Roberts: Hundreds…I don’t know! (smile) Hopefully the one you’ve seen are the one I’ve been offered b because I do try to have this instinct for something that is meaningful to me and hopefully can meaningful and service of that part. There are a lot of great stories out there and unfortunately in this day and age, a lot of them surround just the kind of cultural tragedy is that we ‘re all in this as the 21^st century kind of takes over our connections.

Your twins (Hazel and Phinnaeus) are in their teens now (13). How do they relate to their mom being Julia Roberts, do they make the connection?

Julia Roberts: I think that they’ve stitching all together at this point but in a way that it is a very different point of view. So no I don’t think they ever use my two names together like that, I don’t think they would ever consider me that way. I think it’s even starting when they hear the name Roberts because of course that’s not my last name anymore, that is my stage name so it’s not a really familiar name in our house. So it’s always kind of funny when someone says: “Hello Miss Roberts…” They’ll be like: “oh they’re talking to mom?”

” Homecoming” just premiered on November 2nd .Can you talk about this project?

Julia Roberts: Someone used a phrase yesterday: platform agnostic. I don’t think movies and television exist separately. It’s all become this incredible place to tell stories in different ways. Some stories are better served in one/two-hour moment and some are when you make them little compartments of ways to get the information. I was spoiled working with Sam Esmail on Homecoming because I certainly don’t know anything more about television than before I did it because we shot like a movie. It was my request to have Sam direct all the episodes because that’s how I know how to work to have one-person voice and vision. We had an extraordinary time with this huge cast of people to make this insane story.

Do you still have the same appetite for your job?

Julia Roberts: Yes or I would be at home. Truly because I’m happy at home and fulfilled. So to go out and tell a story is something that I have to feel really passionate about!