Last year, Julia Roberts was in India to film Eat, Pray Love and converted to Hinduism. Now back in the US, the pretty woman admits that Hinduism has always intrigued her and along with husband, Danny Moder and their three children, twins Phinnaeus and Hazel and four-year-old Henry, often visits temples to chant, pray and celebrate. “My children love it. Hazel says that when she grows up, she’s going to live in India. To be in India is to experience it. You don’t have to go looking for India, it’s all right there. For me, visiting the country was an unforgettable experience,” she asserts.
Eat, Pray, Love is memorable for other reasons too. Tom Hanks and she had said howdy-do at several famous-people-club meetings: “Hi! I’m famous, you’re famous, and there’s a camera on us now!” before being paired in Charlie Wilson’s War five years ago. Then, when Julia was in Rome, shooting Eat Pray Love, Tom sent her a script with the message, “Tell me what you think of it.”
She couldn’t stop smiling as she went through it. "It says, ‘You can lose your job and your way and still rescue yourself.’ It creates a self-excavated Utopia and I love the message. Tom is so good at making fun of himself," smiles the Pretty Woman who reunited with Hanks in Larry Crowne, which he has co-produced, written, directed and acted in. She plays Mercedes, a speech professor. Did she find her muse in any of her ownteachers? "This was my first college experience and when I had to speak to the class, I turned apoplectic. All these faces looking up at me and thinking, ‘What is she going to teach us?’ I was terrible!" she reminisces with a shudder.
Do her children realise that mommy is a big movie star? “No, they don’t know what I do yet and I like it that way. I want movies to stay special for them for as long as possible. My daughter said to me the other day that Maria in The Sound Of Music sounded a lot like Mary Poppins. I told her that it was because they’re both English,” she chuckles.
{{/usCountry}}Do her children realise that mommy is a big movie star? “No, they don’t know what I do yet and I like it that way. I want movies to stay special for them for as long as possible. My daughter said to me the other day that Maria in The Sound Of Music sounded a lot like Mary Poppins. I told her that it was because they’re both English,” she chuckles.
{{/usCountry}}Julia is now playing the wicked witch in Snow White. How are the kids going to react to her new role? “This movie came about more out of my interest and a desire to be on board with Tarsem Singh, the director, who is brilliant. His idea of cinema is from another planet altogether,” she raves. “His take on the familiar fairytale is fascinating, what with the sets, the story etc, Tarsem’s version of the Evil Queen is just going to be so fun.”