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# Julia Roberts explains who she is and why
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/review-calendar-girls-is-a-movie-that-is-sharp-witty-and-raw/
- Published: 2003-12-19T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T03:20:52.000Z
- Author: Dan Dunn
- Tags: Entertainment, Santa Monica, #archive-import

There are all sorts of battles raging in “Mona Lisa Smile,” as the establishment at Wellesley College doggedly defends the status quo against “subversive” influences over the minds of the best and brightest young ladies in 1950s America. Julia Roberts is the feminist heroine in director Mike Newell’s ambitious period piece — a resolute art history professor who challenges her impressionable charges to question authority, reex-amine gender roles, explore sexual independence and eschew cultural conformity. As we learned in similar fare such as “Dead Poet’s Society,” she’s got her work cut out for her. But somehow, some way, you just know that Julia is going to win. Julia Roberts, it seems, always wins.

She sat down recently with a group of tape-recorder-toting scribes to chat up her latest picture.

QUESTION: The film is set in the Eisenhower era. Did you do much research on the period to prepare for the role of Katherine Watson?

JULIA ROBERTS: I watched some very nice documentaries on the ’50s, which I thought were very informative. The ’50s are kind of this unheralded decade — the ’60s overpowered it in coolness. The ’50s were an interesting period of time in which our culture became ruled by television and advertising. You were defined by the appliances you had, and it’s interesting to me that people measured their worth that way.

Q: Your character encourages her students to break from the rigid traditions held dear by the establishment at Wellesley. Would you consider yourself a maverick or a traditionalist?

JR: Somewhere in between. Certain traditions and a sense of continuity are glorious when applied to life. This particular school represented loyalty to tradition and should be appreciated.

Q: Why is there such a persistent fascination with movies about the teaching profession?

JR: It’s an environment that we’re all perfectly familiar with, for one thing. Also, it offers a good structure for presenting conflict and personalities in a very clear way.

Q: Did any of your teachers growing up make a lasting impression on you the way Katherine did on her students?

JR: We didn’t have a theater department where I went to school, so there really was no mentor figure there. I look at it as a positive that no one really took much interest in me. Everything forms you, even if you don’t have some genius person who came down and enveloped you with self-confidence. To be ignored can shape you as well as being lauded, I suppose.

Q: Are you telling us that you were ignored in school, Julia?

JR: I’m not saying I was ignored, per se. I just didn’t have someone who necessarily saw some untapped potential in me, and made me feel as though I had some bright future ahead.

Q: Over the years, you’ve used your celebrity to help out with a number of good causes. How motivates you to want to give as much as you do?

JR: As much as it’s great to have the tool of celebrity to bring attention to things, it’s nice when celebrities help out in ways that they keep to themselves. Because it’s not about everyone knowing how philanthropic you are, it’s just about being that way.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/121903-12_01.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/121903-12_02.jpg)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 19, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/121903.pdf?ref=smdp.com)