Julia Roberts tells Richard Curtis thing she ‘loathed’ most about Notting Hill: ‘I was so uncomfortable’

Get our free weekly e-mail for all the newest cinematic information from our movie critic Clarisse Loughrey

Get our The Life Cinematic e-mail without cost

Julia Roberts has opened up about the a part of Notting Hill she “loathed” making.

Roberts, most lately seen in Netflix movie Leave the World Behind, starred within the 1999 romantic comedy as a Hollywood movie actor who finds romance with a British bookshop proprietor, performed by Wonka actor Hugh Grant.

At the time, Roberts was a bonafide star of her personal, having starred in Pretty Woman in 1990 and My Best Friend’s Wedding two years earlier than Notting Hill.

In a brand new Interview with British Vogue, Roberts mentioned the movie in dialog with its creator, author Richard Curtis.

While speaking about the roles she’d taken through the years, Roberts defined that, whereas there have been similarities between herself and her characters, she by no means felt “like I’m playing myself”.

“Honestly, one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do was your movie, playing a movie actress. I was so uncomfortable!” she instructed Curtis of Notting Hill.

“I mean, we’ve talked about this so many times, but I almost didn’t take the part because it just seemed – oh, it just seemed so awkward. I didn’t even know how to play that person.”

Roberts then explained that she’d significantly “loathed” being dressed as a film star for the movie, and that the garments she ended up carrying for the well-known “I’m just a girl” scene have been her personal she’d worn that day.

“My driver, lovely Tommy, I sent him back to my flat that morning,” she recalled. “I said, ‘Go into my bedroom and grab this, this and this out of my closet.’ And it was my own flip-flops and my cute little blue velvet skirt and a T-shirt and my cardigan… I mean, it was a great scene. But who knew that that would become the line.”

While Notting Hill cemented Roberts as a romcom actor, the actor revealed in 2022 that the rationale she hadn’t returned to the style was as a result of she hadn’t discovered something “good enough”.

Access limitless streaming of flicks and TV reveals with Amazon Prime Video

Sign up now for a 30-day free trial

Sign up

Access limitless streaming of flicks and TV reveals with Amazon Prime Video

Sign up now for a 30-day free trial

Sign up

Roberts defined that “people sometimes misconstrue the amount of time that’s gone by” as her “not wanting” to do a romantic comedy, which wasn’t the case.

“If I had read something that I thought was Notting Hill-level of writing or My Best Friend’s Wedding-level of madcap fun, I would do it.”

The exception to the pattern, she stated, had been 2022’s Ticket to Paradise, which she starred in reverse George Clooney.

“They didn’t exist until this movie that I just did that Ol Parker wrote and directed,” she stated.