Julia Roberts covers British Vogue, talks family, career and more

Julia Roberts is reflecting on her family, career and more.

In an interview with screenwriter Richard Curtis for British Vogue, the Academy Award-winning actress, 56, who stars in the the 2023 film "Leave the World Behind" alongside Ethan Hawke and Mahershala Ali, talked about her illustrious career, which spans five decades in the film industry.

"To have made 'Pretty Woman,' 'Notting Hill,' and 'My Best Friend's Wedding.' They just don't come one after another [normally]," Roberts said. "So I think I got lucky."

"One of the hardest things I've ever had to do"

Roberts said playing the character Anna Scott in "Notting Hill," which Curtis wrote and was released 25 years ago, was "one of the hardest things I've ever had to do."

"I was so uncomfortable," Roberts said.

In the film, Roberts' character is a famous Hollywood actress who visits a travel bookstore in Notting Hill, London, and falls in love with the bookstore owner, William Thacker, played by Hugh Grant.

"I almost didn't take the part because it just seemed -- oh, it just seemed so awkward," she said. "I didn't even know how to play that person."

Roberts also said she didn't expect audiences to love her now-famous "I'm just a girl" lines in the film -- "I'm just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her" -- when Anna shares her true feelings for Will.

"It was a great scene," she said. "But who knew that would become the line."

On how show business has changed

Looking back on her career, Roberts, who went on to star in films like "Erin Brockovich" -- which earned her an Academy Award -- "Mona Lisa Smile" and many others, said that show business is "completely different" now.

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"There are so many elements to being famous now," she said. "It just seems exhausting. Whereas I feel like, and again this is just my perception, because I don't really know -- I'm not a young person starting out in show business in the 21st century -- but it seems to me that it was: you meet people, you read for parts, you try to get jobs, you get a job, you try to do a good job, and from that job, you might meet some new people who might suggest you to some other people and then you might get another job and you might get paid a little bit more for that job, and it might be a little bit of a better job."

"It kind of just made this sort of structural sense, and now it just seems more chaotic," she added. "There's more elements, there's more noise, there's more outlets, there's more stuff."

Sharing her "creative life" with her family

These days, Roberts, who is a mom of three -- she shares twins Hazel and Phinneaus, 19, and son Henry, 16, with husband Daniel Moder -- said she loves sharing her career and creative life with her children.

"There's also something to my kids seeing that my creative life is meaningful to me," she said. "I want them to understand that."

"Going outside of the house and being creative is really important and vital," she added. "It doesn't take away from my love of home. It's another level of my life."

Roberts also credited husband Moder with helping her live a "life that is fulfilling."

"I do believe in the love of a good man," she said. "I believe that my husband loves me and cares for me in a way that makes me feel deeply, deeply happy."