Cinema

Julia Roberts on Wonder, Motherhood and the Power of Kindness

Julia Roberts discusses Wonder, motherhood, perseverance and why kindness matters.

Husam Sam Asi 23 November 2017

Julia Roberts during an interview for Wonder, 5 November 2017.

In Wonder, Julia Roberts plays Isabel Pullman, the mother of Auggie, a boy born with severe facial differences caused by a genetic condition that has also affected his breathing, sight and hearing. After numerous surgical procedures, Auggie can function more normally, but nothing can make him look like other children. He becomes reluctant to leave the house and often hides behind an astronaut helmet. His mother puts much of her own life aside to educate him at home until, at the age of ten, she decides he must face the wider world and enrols him in school.

Roberts discovered R. J. Palacio’s bestselling novel while looking for a book to read with her children. She and her family were so moved by the story that she wanted to be part of bringing it to the screen. “It was a book I loved,” she told me when we met in Beverly Hills. “I called and asked whether it might be made into a film and whether I could be involved, because I thought: what a beautiful story to tell, particularly at this moment.”

At school, Auggie is initially mocked, bullied and ostracised because of his appearance. But his intelligence, humour and talent for science gradually change the way his classmates see him. Their contempt turns into respect, and he eventually becomes one of the school’s most popular pupils. The film’s message is simple but timely: beauty lies in character rather than appearance, and judging someone before knowing them can be profoundly destructive.

“I think the film has an endless number of messages,” Roberts said. “Communication, teamwork, listening to each other, talking to each other, being compassionate and being kind. I think we’ve lost some of our ability to look into one another’s eyes, so regaining that is very important.”

Auggie’s ordeal affects every member of the Pullman family, but Isabel pays the highest personal price. She dedicates herself to his care and education and tries to reclaim her own ambitions once he starts school. It is a predicament familiar to many women who have found themselves reshaping their professional lives around motherhood.

Roberts rejects the idea that motherhood diminished her career. “I think motherhood enriched my career,” she said. “It enriched my life too, and I think it became this bottomless source of understanding that helps me in my friendships, in my work and in my everyday life. Motherhood is like this great golden egg.” She laughed that it had certainly made her schedule more crowded: “There’s more washing-up and a lot more searching for the right shoe, but in the end it’s a positive experience.”

When Auggie begs his mother to remove him from school because he cannot bear the cruelty of the other children, Isabel urges him to endure, to persevere and to give people time to see beyond his face. Roberts understands the value of that advice from her own early career.

At seventeen, she left Georgia, where she had been living with her mother, and moved to New York to try her luck as an actress after being inspired by the career of her older brother, Eric Roberts. She credits her mother with giving her the advice that kept her there when she wanted to give up.

“I think the best career advice I ever got was from my mother,” Roberts recalled. “When I moved to New York at seventeen, I was working in a shoe shop and all I wanted was to go home. She told me, ‘You’re not going to succeed if you don’t stay and keep trying.’ I wanted nothing more than to go home, but she really encouraged me to stand my ground, be brave and not become discouraged.”

Roberts worked as a model while pursuing acting jobs. Most of her early parts were minor roles in modestly budgeted films and television shows until she landed her breakthrough in the independent film Mystic Pizza in 1988. The following year, Steel Magnolias earned her her first Academy Award nomination, for Best Supporting Actress.

In 1990 she became a global star with Garry Marshall’s Pretty Woman, opposite Richard Gere. The film was a huge box-office success and earned Roberts another Oscar nomination, this time for Best Actress. Throughout the 1990s she remained one of Hollywood’s most bankable performers, particularly in romantic comedies, before winning the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2001 for Steven Soderbergh’s Erin Brockovich.

Yet despite the Oscar, Roberts says Pretty Woman remains the film strangers mention to her most often. “It’s wonderful,” she said. “Hardly a day goes by without someone saying something to me about Pretty Woman. I also get a lot of lovely comments about Erin Brockovich, but Pretty Woman has a special place in my life, especially now because of the loss of my dear friend Garry Marshall. It always makes me happy when someone says, ‘I watch that movie whenever I’ve had a difficult day. It makes me happy.'”

Roberts’ unusual combination of movie-star glamour and dramatic credibility made her one of the most powerful women in Hollywood. She became the first woman to be named People magazine’s “World’s Most Beautiful Woman” five times and, at the height of her career, commanded salaries previously associated almost exclusively with male stars. She reportedly earned $25 million for Mona Lisa Smile in 2003.

“At the time, I suppose it felt like a kind of victory, but it was never my goal,” Roberts said. “For me, the height of professional satisfaction is the work, the role and the people I work with. The salary means nothing if the work isn’t satisfying or enjoyable. I’ve been lucky with the people I’ve worked with. Whether my salary was high or low wasn’t the important thing. Satisfaction is the thing I aspire to.”

Her films have generated billions of dollars at the worldwide box office, and becoming a mother did not stop her from continuing to work or from receiving major awards recognition. In 2014 she earned her fourth Academy Award nomination, for August: Osage County, and an Emmy nomination for the television film The Normal Heart.

One small but telling detail in Wonder also reflects the changing place of women in Hollywood: Owen Wilson, who plays Isabel’s husband, is slightly younger than Roberts. Not long ago, such casting would have been comparatively unusual for a major studio film.

Roberts is now preparing to star in the political thriller series Homecoming, created by Egyptian-American writer-director Sam Esmail. Meanwhile, Wonder is in cinemas this week, carrying the kind of message Roberts believes audiences urgently need: look at people more closely, listen to them, and choose kindness before judgement.

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