It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that Julia Roberts was one of the dominant Hollywood stars for a good twenty-year period. From her breakout role in 1988’s Mystic Pizza, Roberts skyrocketed to the top of the A-list when she starred opposite Richard Gere in Garry Marshall’s Pretty Woman. An unlikely Cinderella story about an escort that falls in love with a high-powered executive, it’s a movie that is definitely a Hollywood fairytale, but one that a lot of people loved in 1990, with it being one of the year’s top-grossing movies. From there, Roberts made a string of hits, including Flatliners, The Pelican Brief, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Notting Hill and many more, but respect in more heavy vehicles eluded her. Movies like Mary Reilly and Michael Collins were embarrassing for how miscast she was, and for awhile, it looked like she would be stuck doing lightweight but highly profitable rom coms.
However, that changed in 2000 when she played the lead in Steven Soderbergh’s Erin Brockovich. Based on a true story, the movie finally won her the Academy Award that had long eluded her. It earned her serious cred, and her fame took on a whole new dimension, with roles in Oceans’ Eleven, Mona Lisa Smile and Eat Pray Love all big successes. Yet, as the business began to change, emphasizing tentpole movies, Roberts seemed to struggle more than contemporaries like Sandra Bullock to find her place. Eventually, she made a move into TV Prime Video’s Homecoming. Still, it’s notable how low-key the release of a show like Gaslit was despite the names involved. There was a time when Julia Roberts doing a TV series would have been an event.
Next weekend sees the release of Ticket to Paradise, an old-fashioned rom-com, which reteams her with George Clooney. The foreign box office is already huge, and many expect this to be a big success. Is this the start of a major comeback? We dig into Roberts’ career in this episode of WTF Happened to this Celebrity, which is written (with Brad Hamerly) and narrated by Taylor James Johnson, and edited by Juan Jimenez.
What’s your favorite Julia Roberts movie? Let us know in the comments!
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