Julia Roberts Talks About New Film
July 29, 2002 -- ABCNEWS' Diane Sawyer talked to Julia Roberts and co-star Blair Underwood about their new film, Full Frontal.
Roberts, still giddy from her recent wedding to cameraman Danny Moder, told Sawyer that she's planning to have a family.How will she juggle it all while being the biggest movie star of her time? Roberts says her schedule couldn't be easier.
The following is an uncorrected, unedited transcript of Roberts' interview with ABCNEWS' Diane Sawyer as it aired on Good Morning America.
SAWYER: Does it make you want to work less or more?
ROBERTS: Everything makes me want to work less. Yeah.
SAWYER: Might you? Might you really stop for a while?
ROBERTS: Well, I don't know how I could work less than I do now because I did this movie [Full Frontal] for Soderbergh [Director Steven Soderbergh] in November. I worked five days. I did a movie for George Clooney for eight days in January, and I worked today. Who can work less than me and not be unemployed?
SAWYER VOICE OVER TAPE:
Despite a light shooting schedule, Roberts has been very busy. But how does she work when even her costars are sometimes gawking at her?
ROBERTS: I'm oblivious. I'm oblivious.
SAWYER: Can you be? Can anybody be oblivious to the eyes on them all the time?
ROBERTS: Well, look, the fact of the matter is the reality of what it's like to be me every day, first of all, it's fantastic [laughter], but it's not anything like one would imagine as far as the observation of others. It just really isn't. If it were, then I would have crumbled a thousand years ago.
SAWYER VOICE OVER TAPE:
For Full Frontal, the highest-paid actress in Hollywood took a pay cut. The new film is a little picture about Hollywood. It's a no-frills production — no limos, no catering, no makeup and wardrobe people. That's right, Julia Roberts did her own makeup. Her co-star is Blair Underwood. You may remember him from L.A. Law (1986 - 1994).
SAWYER: You did drive yourself to work.
ROBERTS: Mm-hmm.
SAWYER: You picked your own clothes That was your hair net.
ROBERTS: Mm-hmm.
SAWYER: Your personal hair net?
ROBERTS: Yeah.
SAWYER: You wear it at home when you're feeling special.
ROBERTS: I know. I have a tiny, tiny head. It's kind of embarrassing. Not all the world has seen it.
SAWYER: This is outward bound for actors, this is boot camp, but does it automatically mean that you get to do a different and purer kind of work or is it something else?
UNDERWOOD: I think it does. But the point of that was to create it yourself, to really let the actors say this is how I see the character, this is how he looks, how he acts, how he talks, and really just kind of go from there.
SAWYER VOICE OVER TAPE:
Since the movie biz and all its little relationships were the film's terrain, Blair Underwood had a poem he wanted to include. It's about the history of African-American leading men in Hollywood. No one had heard the words until the cameras rolled, not even Julia.
SAWYER: The speech in the limousine.
UNDERWOOD: Well, I …
ROBERTS: I love when people ask about the speech in limousine because it was one take.
UNDERWOOD: That was not scripted. That was …
ROBERTS: It was one take. It piqued us all so that in the last vestiges of a long shooting day said, "Can you do it? We've got 2 and 1/2 minutes. Go. Give us what you got," and bam!
UNDERWOOD IN MOVIE CLIP, FULL FRONTAL: "I suppose we've come a way since Sambone, Mr Bo Jangles. Show them the money now Cuba. Get 'em funny like Chris Rock or Tucker or Cooly to be anybody like Denzel, but wait he ain't even really gettin no lovin', like Sydney before him and whoever after him … romancin and dancin' with the mores passion ain't in the scripts equation."
SAWYER VOICE OVER TAPE: They filmed that scene last November, and just a few months later shared in Hollywood history at the Oscars. Julia presented Denzel Washington's Best Actor award, and Blair was sitting with Sidney Poitier, who was given a lifetime achievement Oscar that night.
UNDERWOOD: It was very surreal to me on many different levels to be in that box with him who inspired me to become an actor, to want to become an actor, and then to see Halle [Berry] and to see Denzel and then to see you give it to Denzel, it was just, it was amazing.
SAWYER: What did you learn about her as an actor ?
UNDERWOOD: Well, let me say …
ROBERTS: And he lets go of my hand.
UNDERWOOD: No. I have to say this because so often since I did this film, people want to know what is Julia Roberts like, the movie star, the greatest movie star of our time.
ROBERTS: Oh.
UNDERWOOD: All that stuff. Work with it. Work with it. You're going to blush? But truly what is incredible about her is that she is so available in every moment. Now, in the movie when we meet for the first time, we actually had just met five minutes prior to that, and she's right there. I mean, it's Acting 101, but she is a great actress in addition to everything else that comes along with it. Thank you for letting me get that out without shutting me up.
ROBERTS: Thank you, baby.
UNDERWOOD: It's true.