She may be the highest-paid woman in Hollywood, but Julia Roberts prefers a "normal" life to the trappings of
Tinseltown. With a new movie opening this month, the reluctant star sits for Herb Ritts and talks to Charles
Gandee about her life, her loves, and the pressures of fame.

Last July, when Julia Roberts knelt the altar of the St. James Lutheran Church in Marion, Indiana, to plight her troth to crooner
Lyle Lovett, she was suddenly, she now confesses, gripped with fear.

Aha ! you might say. Of course she was gripped with fear - marrying a man she'd known a mere month, joining in a union that
would rival Liz and Larry's in sheer stop-the-presses sensationalism.

Not at all.

The source of Roberts's altar anxiety was of a purely pedestrian nature. "When I knelt down", she recalls, "I could feel the air on
my feet, and I thought, 'I bet everybody at this moment is looking at the bottom of my feet', and then I thought, 'Oh, my God, I
hope my feet are clean.'"

Julia Roberts, as most everyone in the free world is aware, walked down the aisle last July wearing a plain white Comme des
Garcons sheath, an Isadora Duncan-length tulle scarf, and no shoes. The reason Roberts didn't wear shoes was "not any
groovier" than the simple fact that there weren't any shoes in the box with the $725 Comme des Garcons sheath that Lovett
sent, for no particular reason, to his bride-to-be on the Louisiana set of The Pelican Brief. "I could have worn Keds, and that
would have been fine", she offers, "but I like to be barefoot because I like to be dug in close to the earth."

Among the things a person tends to give up when he or she is paid somewhere in the neighborhood of nine or ten or eleven
million dollars for somewhere in the neighborhood of three months' work is the ability to be "dug in close to the earth." It's
axiomatic. Especially in Hollywood. after all, how can a "star" be dug in close to the earth ?

If that star is Julia Roberts (who would prefer it if you didn't use the word star anywhere near her - not, for that matter, the
word actress), she does it by sheer force of her will. When the 26-year-old "actor" sets her mind to something, in other words,
that something has a way of turning out pretty much the way she'd like. It's a personal trademark that can be traced back to
Fitzhugh Lee Elementary School in Smyrna, Georgia, where little Julie Fiona Roberts answered "six feet tall" when her teacher
asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up ?" Although Roberts didn't quite reach her goal - she's five nine - she is
quick to point out that her sister, Lisa, is five two : "So something must have come from all that DNA lusting."

Perhaps to compensate for those three inches fate denied her, Roberts has scaled the heights in other areas - particularly, in her
work.

They say you're the highest paid woman in the history of Hollywood.

" That's what they say. "

They say you're the first woman who's broken through Hollywood's glass ceiling, the first woman who can
" open " a movie, the first woman who can play hardball with the boys.

" You got it. That's the rap. "

Why you ?

" It's God's overcompensation for me being unpopular in high school... I really don't know. I wouldn't want to
know. I'd become so self-conscious that I would screw it up. There are certain things that shouldn't be analyzed
too much. "

If Roberts demurs on the subject of her success, Robert Altman does not. " If Julia played basketball, she'd be Michael Jordan
", offers the director, who first worked with Roberts when she parodied herself in The Player, his 1992 send-up of Hollywood.
While Altman reports that Roberts performed her cameo admirably - " she just got into the chair and passed out " - it was a
more recent role in his send-up of the fashion industry, Pret-a-porter, now in postproduction, that dazzled the not easily dazzled
director. " She's smart - very, very smart ", says Altman. " And confident. She knows what she's doing. She's way, way beyond
the platitudes. I mean, she's really got it. And I'm not talking about ticket sales, about 'box office'. I'm talking about
performance. "

The performance that prompted such a glowing review is Roberts's portrayal of a fashion reporter who ends up sharing a Paris
hotel room with Tim Robbins, who plays a sports reporter. The character " has a little booze problem ", reveals Altman. " Every
time she gets any booze in her, she gets amorous. It's high comedy, very farcial. " Of the dynamic between Robbins and
Roberts, who offscreen are good friends, the director chortles, " They remind me of Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in It
happened One Night. And then, perhaps concerned that he had not quite made his position on Roberts clear. Altman adds, " I
have a couple of pictures coming up and I'll give them both her right now. I don't know that she'll take them, but she can have
what I've got. "

Altman isn't alone in his admiration. " I think Julia would have been a movie star in any era - the thirties, the forties, anytime ",
speculates Charles Shyer, the director and co-author of I Love Trouble, a sort of old-fashioned romantic comedy, opening at
the end of this month, in which Roberts and Nick Nolte play sparring newspaper reporters. " Julia's got 'it', that undefinable
thing ", continues Shyer. " She comes through. She makes a connection. Audiences relate to her. Sometimes when I'm looking
through dailies trying to find a specific take, I forget what I'm looking for because I get caught up in just watching her. "

Asked whom he would have cast in I Love Trouble had Roberts not been available, Shyer gives the question some thought
before answering, " Carole Lombard ".

Richard Gere, Roberts's costar in Pretty Woman, the 1990 film that made her a household name (and Disney $433 million),
confirms Shyer's assessment : " One big thing about Julia is she understands an audience. She actually wants to communicate to
an audience. And I think the audience feels that - feels the availability of her. What she brought [to her character] was reality. It
wasn't synthetic in any way whatsoever. She didn't have to push to get anything. It was all spontaneous and natural to her. "

Lili Taylor, who worked alongside Roberts in the 1988 sleeper Mystic Pizza and who was recently reunited with Roberts on
Pret-a-Porter, remembers when the two were little more than wide-eyed teenage wannabes : " What I always liked about her
was that she just sort of bit into life, just sort of charged at life. I've always admired her gusto. There was this feeling that even
though Julia wasn't famous, she was going to be. " And has fame spoiled the Julia that Taylor remembers ? " On this set we're all
treated the same, " reports Taylor, " and Julia's just fine with that. "

While Roberts points out that her check for Pret-a-Porter is considerably smaller than usual, she does acknowledge that the
salary that comes with being the chosen female in Hollywood is beyond formidable. She is quick not only to depersonalize the
sensational sums her ICM agent, Elaine Goldsmith, snares for her, however, but also to put a feminist spin on those sums : " The
thing about being paid a ridiculous amount of money, ho are as deserving as men in movies, and should be justly compensated
for it. "

Continuing on in the same sisterhood-is-powerful vein, she effectively, if inadvertently, contrasts her public image and her
self-image by noting, " I really love women, I really appreciate the efforts and struggles and intelligence of women. You know,
there are girl's girls, and there are boy's girls, and I think I've always been a girl's girl - regardless of my capacity to appreciate
men, to be interested in men, to be captivated by men. " (The feeling seems to be mutual, according to Roberts's
well-documented romantic history, which includes an impressive roster of high-profile men : Liam Neeson, Dylan McDermott,
Kiefer Sutherland, Jason Patric, and, of course, Lyle Lovett.)

Gender, however isn't the only thing that distinguishes Roberts from the gang of guys at her side at the top - a gang that,
depending on whom you ask, either does or does not include Tom Cruise, Arnold Schwarzeneger, Eddie Murphy, Kevin
Costner, Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, and Jack Nicholson. For example, Roberts is undoubtedly the sole member of that
high-priced pantheon who would encourage a stranger wielding a tape recorder with the heartwarming words " Shoot from the
hip, babe. I'm yours. I'm here. "

She is also probably the only one with whom it would be possible to have the following exchange :

Do you think you're sexy ?

" What do you think ? "

I don't count.

" Everybody counts. I've learned that. Sexy ? No. Nice ? Yes. I'm a nice person. I don't think I'm necessarily a
sexy person. But I think nice can be sometimes more important than sexy. You know, butts drop, tits sag. Sexy is
all perspective and opinion anyway. In a room of ten people, two could think one person's sexy that eight think is a
dog. "

Such cool self-scrutiny might seem disingenuous were it not consistent with everything else Roberts reveals about herself. If it's a
self-effacing act, she is a better actor than even her biggest fans claim. And she probably wouldn't be quite so eager to articulate
her not-a-bit-hidden agenda : " Sitting here talking to you, I have this unspoken challenge to reveal some greater sense of truth
about myself in order to compensate for all the falseness that you may have in your mind. "

Roberts's references to " truth ", " falseness ", and her " unspoken challenge " could mark her as yet another paranoid celebrity
but for the tabloids, where she appears with a frequency that rival Liz, Loni, and Roseanne. And then there's Julia : The Untold
Story of America's Pretty Woman, an " unauthorized biography " that claims to unveil, for $4.99, " the cover-up of the decade :
the real story behind her troubled family life " i.e. : Her childhood was less than ideal. Money was a problem. Her parents
divorced when she was four. Her mother remarried. Her father died when she was nine. Then there's the news flash from Hard
Copy, which featured, in its February 25 " edition ", the honeymoon's-over news that in the first eight months of their marriage,
Roberts and Lovett spent a total of ten nights together.

Although Roberts says she makes it a practice not to refute apocryphal stories about herself - " that empowers the story, plus it
brings the story to people's attention for two days instead of one " - for Hard Copy's tonight tally she makes an exception. "
Why don't these people do even the most remote little fact checking, in order to discover that I have been making a movie in
LA, that Lyle has been making a record in LA, that these are two day-consuming events, and that we live in the same [rented]
house in LA, and that, therefore, we get up in the morning, we have breakfast, he goes off to work, I go off to work, we come
home at night, 'How was your day, dear ?' That whole gig. What fascinates me is they come up with a number - ten. But what
are you gonna do ? These people are wacko. "

If Roberts was willing to make an exception to her " no-comment " rule for the Hard copy story, she reverts back to
obfuscation for the exponentially more inflammatory stories that followed - reports of " depression " and a steady stream of
break-up notices, which, naturally, led to reports that Roberts was pregnant. the culmination of such speculations is, perhaps,
the photo splashed across the front page of the April 29 New York Post, accompanied by the headline " Lovett or Leave It ".
The cover shot, and two additional shots inside, show Roberts at a New York restaurant holding hands, dancing, and nestling
with new kid on the celebrity block, Reality Bites star Ethan Hawke, whom the Post describes as a " hunky heartthrob ". The
breathless prose accompanying the " exclusive photos reports that the duo " sipped Dom Perignon into the wee hours. " The
requisite that Roberts blind quotes from the requisite " friend of Julia's " inform Post readers that Roberts had confided, " Lyle's
an OK guy, but there's really nothing between us... The marriage is over ".

" Julia gave me a quote to give you ", says guard-dog publicist Nancy Seltzer when I call her in LA the morning the Post story
hits newsstands. The " quote " : " I have a deep, tremendous love for Lyle. I think he is one of the poetic geniuses of our time. "
Rather than challenging the accuracy of the Post story or the effiacy of the Post photographs - and any article that cites the
National Enquirer as a source certainly warrants some challenging - Roberts's quote raises more questions than it answers.
Perhaps accidentally. Perhaps intentionally.

It's no wonder that downplaying her celebrity seems to be such a priority. In fact, Roberts will probably be pleased to hear that
on the afternoon we meet in the Manhattan offices of ICM, there is very little about her, at least at first glance, that distinguishes
her from any other slightly frazzled New Yorker having a bad hair day. Certainly there is nothing about her ensemble that gives
her away - long thermal underwear, a well-worn black leather motorcycle jacket, black construction boots, a backpack, and a
baseball cap. Nor about the time she arrives for our 2:00 appointment, 2:06 - and apologetic about the 06.

Underscoring the I'm-just-a-regular-gal point, as well as offering some window into her personality, are a series of details that
somehow come across as more emblematic than accidental during our two hours days of " hangin' ". She pulls out tobacco and
papers and expertly rolls herself a cigarette, which she lights with a yellow plastic disposable lighter. She grows restless in her
chair and climbs up on top of the ICM conference table, where she sits cross-legged for a while, trying on my glasses, which
she says remind her of looking through a fish-eye lens. And little bits and pieces of autobiographical information echo her
antisensational theme. She doesn't own a car. she does take the subway. She doesn't like other people to do her laundry.

Her desire for normalcy also explains why Manhattan has been home since she left Smyrna after high school in 1985 and moved
in with big sister Lisa. " New York is a much easier environment to just float along with than LA, because LA really sort of pays
too much attention to the movie business. I guess it has to, but I just don't find it interesting enough to consume 24 hours of my
every day, unless it's a project I'm working on. " She describes her downtown New York co-op as " just a normal apartment "
(whose recent renovation she somewhat defensively explains with " I wanted a bigger kitchen... It's not like I'm hanging
chandeliers or putting in crystal basins ").

So perhaps it is not surprising that Roberts chooses to meet for a late breakfast our second day together at a Greenwich Village
luncheonette, where she orders toast and grits, or that afterward she says, " Why don't we go in here for a while, " and " her "
turns out to be an Episcopal church, where she remarks of the midday mass in progress : " Not much a turnout. " Given the " not
very progressive " bent she confesses to, neither is it surprising when Roberts mentions, leaving the church, that yes, she does
attend church with some regularity. Her " old-fashioned " idea of matrimony seems to go hand in hand with her revelation that
she breaks out in hives when she's nervous, which happens when a script calls for nudity : " There are certain people in this life
who should know what you like naked, and I just don't think my high school algebra teacher is a person who should be privy to
what my butt looks like. "

If nudity helps Roberts decide which scripts to reject, how does she decide which ones to accept ? " Elaine may shoot me, but
if I really loved something, and I felt that it would propel me as an actor, and they said, 'You'll get room and board', I absolutely
would do it. " And she adds, " I'm gonna turn down a project that I don't like whether they're gonna pay me $500 or $$$50
million. If I don't like it, I don't like it, and no amount of money is gonna make me do it. Just like no small amount of money is
gonna deter me. "

Picking and choosing your work without regard to money is, of course, the ultimate luxury for an actor - for anyone. And
Roberts has taken full advantage with her eclectic choices : a doomed diabetic in Steel Magnolias, a paid companion to a boy
with leukemia in Dying Young, a battered wife in Sleeping with the Enemy, Tinkerbell in Hook. " Julia makes her own decisions
", says agent Goldsmith, who lobbied as hard, and as futilely, against Flatliners as she did for Sleepless in Seattle.

Among the stories that have recently snared her interest is Mary Reilly, novelist Valerie Martin's variation on the
Jekyll-and-Hyde theme - as seen through the eyes of the housekeeper. Although Roberts is enthusiastic about the project,
which will costar John Malkovich and be directed by Stephen Frears (My Beautiful Laundrette, Dangerous Liasions, The
Grifters), she did seem a bit disheartened by something she'd just come across in the paper. " I read this little interview with
Valerie Martin yesterday, and they said, 'What do you think about Julia Roberts ?' And she said, 'I think she'll be fine'. But then
she goes on to say that John Malkovich was her 'first choice', and that Stephen Frears is 'just perfect'. And I thought, well, 'fine'
looks pretty shrivelly next to 'first choice' and 'just perfect' ".

On the downside of her celebrity, Roberts notes with some amazement that " there are people who see me at the grocery store
and think that I should be, like, wearing Chanel or something. they can't respond to the fact that I'm in cutoffs and a T-shirt. As
if it's part of my job to always look impeccable. Which isn't ever gonna happen. Ever ! Or like when I get off a plane, and
people start taking pictures and then they write, 'Darling, find a hairdresser'. It's like, 'I've been on a plane for eighteen hours,
sleeping. My skin is sucked dry, my hair is a mess. What do you want from me ?' ".

On the upside, however, is her access and wherewithal to make what others only dream of come to pass - such as two-week
stint in February 1992 at one of Mother Teresa's missions for children in Calcutta. " Going to India was extraordinary. It really
sort of puts you back into place, not that I feel like I ever get too far from a place of perspective and grounding, too far away
from where I started. But at the same time, it really snaps you into a place of perspective that doesn't really exist in the
day-to-day world. "

As if to reiterate the point, Roberts says, " people have this fantastical idea of the life of me, but it's a fable ". Then, perhaps
fearing she hasn't made the point, she adds, " Look, my life, my real life, has never made ood newspaper copy. That's the sad
fact of the matter. And I've paid the price for the fact that my life doesn't make good copy. People make it up. I mean, the
whole thing about the last to years and here I've been and my big 'comeback' and that whole thing. I'm not coming back from
anywhere. I've been here all along. I've been happy all along. I was 'away' only insofar as I wasn't getting up to report to work
every morning. But I was still reading scripts, still talking to people, still meeting ith directors. I was waiting for a good fucking
script. Should I make a movie so that everyone knows where I am and what I'm doing ? Or should I wait and find something
that I really believe in, and deal with all the speculation and rumors and false reports ? "

One explanation for " all the speculation and rumors and false reports " may be people's inability to believe that an actor then
being paid a reported $8 million per movie would choose not to make any movies for two years. another, of course, could be
Roberts's Taylor-scale wedding to Kiefer Sutherland, that she flew off to Ireland with actor Jason Patric.

About her future in Hollywood, Roberts is equal parts optimistic and realistic : " I have a hard time finding scripts that I really
like, and I'm 26 years old. The bulk of material written is about youngerish people, because it's easier, because as we get older
our life situations become more complex. We're not as frivolous. You know, you just can't write some sort of silly tale about a
40-year-old woman. This is a woman who has done things, who maybe has kids, who's maybe loved four or five different
people profoundly in her life. And I think that's probably a lot more difficult to write a clever story around than it is to write a
story about a 21-year-old girl who doesn't give a shit, and will sort of go with whatever and be with whomever.

Although Roberts is no longer that 21-year-old girl " who doesn't give a shit, and will sort of go with whatever and be with
whomever ", traces of confused youth nonetheless linger on.

Or so I infer from the telephone call I receive from Roberts a couple of weeks after we'd said goodbye with a hug in the lobby
of her downtown co-op. It is 10:30 P.M., and Roberts is calling with a request - to delete her response to a question I'd asked
our second day together. The question was " Do you believe that marriage is monogamous and forever ? ".