Julia Roberts Gets Candid with her Close Friend, George Clooney.
EE72 Listens in.

GC

How did the film come to you? How did it end up on your radar?

JR

It was just kind of standard fare — you know, my agent said “Hey, have a look at this.” I read it, and I thought, “Huh… OK. There’s something interesting there for sure.” I was definitely intrigued but… it wasn’t — it wasn’t arresting enough at that point.

GC

But you already knew [director] Luca [Guadagnino], yes?

JR

Well — no. So that was the thing. When someone said Luca might be interested in this, that’s what got me interested. It just so happened that I was in LA and he was there at the same time. We ended up at a party at [CAA chief executive and agent] Bryan [Lourd’s] house. And we saw each other and we sat down on the couch and we were just like, “Well, I’m thinking this about the story,” and I’m like, “Well, this kind of works, but what about this? What if this happened?” And we just… it was like this for over an hour.

GC

Your husband must have been thrilled. [Laughs]

JR

[Laughs] It was just sort of this divine intervention that we had ended up together in that moment and were able to spur each other on with this idea, and it came together. And of course one of my favorite movies of his is “A Bigger Splash” with Tilda [Swinton], she’s the best.

GC

I feel like you’re making really fascinating choices in your career. Where are you in your career right now? What is it that you want to do? What are you enjoying?

JR

I think I am enjoying the idea of feeling so relaxed about it. I have so much joy surrounding the idea of work as opposed to panic or, “I need to work. I’ve got to prove myself.” I never really had much in the way of ambition, but I did have things I wanted to prove to myself or things that I wanted to prove to my peers. The idea of going out and finding someone like Luca who I have so long admired, and to create this working relationship with him and to understand a little bit of how his incredible mind works was great. The two joys of my working life are getting to work with people who I consider artistic heroes of mine and re-investigating, rediscovering creative relationships over and over again with people I love; like I get to do with you from time to time. People who I’ve worked with when I was in my 20s and 30s and 40s and 50s, that’s really f*cking cool.

GC

Most of us are like, “Take a job, any job.” You have a quality that’s important, which is you have always appreciated your position in your career and in your life, and you’ve done it with such gratitude. Not that many people survive in this business; not that many people make it in this business. It’s not just making it, if you look at the big careers from the old movie stars, 20 years is a big career. It’s not that long, but you’re already 35 years into it, which is pretty amazing.

JR

It’s crazy. I do believe in luck, George, and I also believe in the good fortune of meeting people and being able to surround myself with people who have truly had my best interest at heart. I think to be in the business this long and I’ve really only had two people try to rip me off — in whatever way — there was only two. That’s pretty good.

GC

So, Brad, and who’s the other one? [Laughs]