FILM

Pretty Woman Hits the Road
Julia Roberts tries on 'wacky' in Mexican
By Bert Osborne



The 20 million dollar woman, and, oh yeah, that Pitt guy.

Whether or not it indicates a changing tide in the state of roles for women in general, the good news about this year's Oscar nominations is that, for the first time in recent memory, the Best Actress nominees are collectively stronger and more impressive than their counterparts in the Best Actor category. The bad news is that the outcome of the race - according to many - appears to be a foregone conclusion.

In any other year, Joan Allen (The Contender), Juliette Binoche (Chocolat), Ellen Burstyn (Requiem for a Dream) and Laura Linney (You Can Count on Me) would be deserving front-runners in each of their own rights. But from the moment Julia Roberts first sashayed across movie screens last spring in the form-fitting role of a curvaceous crusader in (Erin Brockovich), conventional wisdom has had it that the third time would be the charm for the 33-year-old superstar, a two-time Oscar loser (for Steel Magnolias and Pretty Woman) - and she remains the year's closest thing to a "lock."

Roberts says she isn't sweating the March 25 ceremony. "I'm in a no-stress zone about the whole thing. It is what it is," she maintains during a recent interview.

For an actress who already seems to have everything - including her pick of almost any script in Hollywood, and the box-office clout to command the same $20-million salary ordinarily reserved for the big boys - what else could Roberts possibly need but the ultimate validation of winning an Oscar? She puts it more rationally: "Well, I wouldn't necessarily say winning was IMPORTANT to me, but I think the POSSIBILITY of winning is certainly exciting for any actor."

But enough about the Oscar. As the actress quips, "You're like four or five weeks ahead of me, and it's all I can do to stay focused on the here and now." Right now, Roberts is here to focus on The Mexican, her new movie with Brad Pitt. The sophomore effort of director Gore Verbinski, it's an unwieldy concoction of crime caper and romantic comedy every bit as convoluted and chaotic as his first film, (Mouse Hunt, 1998) - and nearly as cartoonish.

Although you'd probably never guess it to see any of the advertisements, Roberts and Pitt spend considerably more time apart than they do together in the movie (à la Sleepless in Seattle). In what basically amounts to bookends for the bulk of the plot, the cute co-stars bicker and reconcile in typically highstrung, dimwitted fashion. In the interim, while he's south of the border botching yet another "courier" job for the mob, she's forging an unlikely kinship with the hitman (James Gandolfini, The Sopranos) they've hired to keep an eye on her.

"It was nice to find a script this wacky and original - something that was all over the map, both literally and figuratively," Roberts observes. "I liked the contrivance of introducing these two characters and then separating them into their own substories. It's almost like two or three little movies in one, the one with me and James on the road, the one with Brad down in Mexico, and the one when the three of us finally cross paths."

The pairing of a couple of bona fide superstars always promises to be a big deal with ticket buyers, just as it tends to make shrewd business sense to studio executives, but Roberts insists her career choices aren't quite as calculated as all that.

"Whether it's a big picture or a little one, a leading role or a supporting part, a comedy or a drama, my main objective is usually just trying to avoid repeating myself," the actress elaborates. "This girl in [The Mexican] was a far cry from playing Erin Brockovich, you know? I mean, I could be as wild and crazy as I wanted to be. I didn't have to shy away from anything. I had license to really go the distance with her, without having to make too much sense of everything."

The strategy - "if you can call it that," she notes - continues paying off. As busy as ever, Roberts is currently filming writer Billy Crystal's romantic comedy (America's Sweethearts) (in a supporting role to John Cusack and Catherine Zeta-Jones), and then she's reuniting with both Pitt and (Erin Brockovich) director Steven Soderbergh for a remake of the Rat Pack movie (Ocean's Eleven), in which she'll be part of a star-studded (and manly) ensemble also featuring Matt Damon, George Clooney, Don Cheadle, Andy Garcia and Bill Murray.

Best of all, Roberts says she can look at her career without regret: "If it's true that I get the pick of the litter, and I'm not saying it is, then I guess the number of good scripts I've come across is equal to the number of movies I've made over the years. I've never turned anything down that I regretted. Even if it turns out to be something great, I can usually appreciate that without kicking myself for not doing it," she explains. OK, then has she ever regretted NOT turning down a project? (Mary Reilly? I Love Trouble?) "Well, that's a different story," Roberts replies with a grin.


 

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