As Julia Roberts turns 53, looking at the Hollywood star's best works, from Mystic Pizza to Homeland

Julia Roberts had once revealed that the unprecedented success of Pretty Woman overshadowed her other notable works before, like Mystic Pizza (1988) and Steel Magnolias (1989). Indeed, Roberts waltzed into the hearts of viewers only in her third silver screen appearance, after starring in Satisfaction in 1988 opposite Liam Neeson and Justin Bateman, and Blood Red, led by her brother Eric Anthony Roberts. In Mystic Pizza, Roberts essays Daisy Araújo, a Portuguese-American teenager who serves as a waitress with her sister Kat (Annabeth Gish) at a pizza joint in the town of Mystic. Roberts’ natural vivacity and her glorious mop of hair perfectly complemented the role of a feisty, spirited woman who would proactively break rules to forge new ones. While always trodding on the fun genre, Mystic Pizza spotlighted the class disparity, some would argue, much more authentically than Pretty Woman.

It is perhaps logical to celebrate Pretty Woman as Roberts’ career-defining film. After all, the blockbuster raked in an astronomical $463 million at the box office. For context, Mystic Pizza made a paltry $12.8 million.

A sex worker being whisked away by a charming billionaire might feel too contentious and reductive in the present context, but at the time of the film’s release, audience lapped up Richard Gere and Julia Robert’s sweeping romance. Julia Roberts’ warm screen presence, and her signature toothy grin imbued Vivian with a relatability and wholesomeness the audience couldn’t wait to have more of. But Vivian is not the virginal Mills and Boon heroine without street-smarts. She is a sex worker who offers her affection only to the highest bidder. In her transactional relationship with Edward Lewis (Gere), she is always on equal footing with the proverbial “saviour”, in his case, a corporate hobnob. Director Garry Marshall’s peddled a Cinderella-like rags-to-riches fantasy with oodles of charm and Old Hollywood nostalgia. Pretty Woman’s reception led to Robert’s meteoric rise and a decade-long association with era-defining romantic comedies. The role also snagged a Best Actress Golden Globe trophy and her second Oscar nomination after Steel Magnolias.

The latter half of the 90s saw the actress appearing in back-to-back romantic comedies, My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), Stepmom, Notting Hill (1999), and Runaway Bride (1999). From 1990, when Pretty Woman released, to My Best Friend’s Wedding in 1997, Roberts only appeared in the legal thriller The Pelican Belief. Despite the film’s decent earnings, it was Roberts’ take as the manipulative yet vulnerable woman in My Best Friend’s Wedding that resonated most with the viewers.

The film finds Julia Roberts’s Julianne Potter in a pickle when she suddenly develops romantic feelings for her old friend upon learning that he is engaged. She is understandably disconcerted when her back-up marriage pact with her friend Michael (Dermot Mulroney) is tossed out of the window. While initially fun, Julianne’s plans to break off Michael’s engagement become increasingly unsettling to watch. But it is only to the credit of the actor that the audience at once condemns and empathises with Jules. She is deeply flawed, yet, it is her flaws that make her human. Notting Hill was more conventional in comparison, where the protagonists navigate their differences and fall in love. It was a fuzzy, cheesy romantic comedy that remains an immensely pleasurable watch even two decades after its release. Robert’s “I’m just a girl” dialogue is still etched in public memory, because of how earnest the actress made it sound.

By the 2000s, not only was Roberts one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood, reports state the actress was the first female actor to earn a $20 million paycheck for Steven Soderbergh’s Erin Brockovich. Roberts took home her first Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of the real-life woman who took down a corrupt corporate giant. The movie squarely rested on the sassy screenplay and the lead actor’s ability to convincingly deliver them. 

In a career spanning over thirty years, Roberts has over 70 film and TV show titles to her name. Not all of them were spun gold at the box office, though. Mike Newell’s Mona Lisa Smile, for example, has had many contemporary critics appreciating Roberts’ carefree and inspirational teacher, Katherine Ann Watson. But when it hit the screens in 2003, the film was dismissed as a Dead Poets Society-like chick flick. Even Eat Pray Love, despite its ambitious scope, feels too gimmicky to be taken seriously.

In the latter part of her career, Roberts has deliberately moved away from romantic comedies. Both Wonder (2017) and Homecoming (2018), her latest film and TV outings, respectively, are a far cry from her sprightly image. Wonder centred on a young boy with Treacher Collins Syndrome, a genetic facial deformity. Roberts and Owen Wilson play his parents. As a mother to a boy who is considered a social pariah by his schoolmates, Roberts was heartbreakingly beautiful. But Homecoming, the Apple TV+ psychological thriller series, is perhaps Roberts’ finest piece of work till date. In this show, she is not the easily discernible, likeable heroine. In this chilling 10-episode series, she is an enigma. The role is unlike anything she has ever done before. In fact, she does away with every bit of Julia Roberts-ness for the role of Heidi Bergman, a therapist working to rehabilitate and help former soldiers return to civilian life. With Homecoming, she also proved to naysayers that she is more than her perceived persona.

The actor continues to sign films after films, her latest being Ticket To Paradise (co-starring George Cloonet and Kaitlyn Dever).