Julia Roberts on Not Doing Romantic Comedies for 20 Years: If Anything Was Notting Hill Level, I Would

The Notting Hill star said she avoided the genre for nearly two decades because no storyline matched the level of her famous films like Pretty Woman or My Best Friend’s Wedding.

Besides his brief appearances in the rom-com set Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day and the romantic drama Eat Pray Love, the actor’s last outing in a romantic comedy was America’s Sweethearts in 2001.

Roberts, 54, told The New York Times that she doesn’t avoid the genre, it’s just that good scripts don’t come to her.

“People sometimes misinterpret the time that has passed without me doing a rom-com as if I didn’t want to do one,” Roberts said. “If I had read something that I thought was the writing level of ‘Notting Hill’ or the crazy level of fun of ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’, I would. They didn’t exist before this film that I just did and that Ol Parker wrote and directed.

Roberts said she would have said no to Ticket to Paradise if it hadn’t been for Clooney, 60, her co-star in films such as Ocean’s Eleven and Money Monster.

She thought the movie only worked with Clooney.

“Lo and behold, George felt that it only worked with me. Somehow we both got to do it, and off we went,” Roberts said of returning to gender. .

When asked by the NYT if she’d avoided rom-coms for 20 years because “there wasn’t one good script, not one,” Roberts replied, “Yeah.”

“Here’s the thing: If I thought something was good enough, I would have done it,” Roberts said.

“But I’ve also had three kids in the last 18 years. It raises the bar even higher because then it’s not just ‘Is this material any good?’ It is also the mathematical equation of my husband’s work schedule and the children’s school schedule and summer holidays.

“It’s not just, ‘Oh, I think I want to do this.’ I’m very proud to be home with my family and to consider myself a homemaker.

The actress, who is married to cinematographer Daniel Moder, said she felt responsible for her children as they got older.

“As I get older, and especially with my daughter, I feel a sense of responsibility to show my children that I can be creative and that it’s meaningful to me, so meaningful that for periods of time I’ll choose to focus on that almost more than my family, with whom I struggled to reconcile.

In the NYT interview, Roberts also debunked one of the longstanding rumors that her iconic smile is insured for $30 million.

“No. What am I insuring it against? How would you do that? I mean, if my smile was insured, there would be someone in my house every night saying, ‘You need to floss longer.