Who needs a facelift when you’ve got love?
Julia Roberts has been gracing movie screens with her famous smile and bouncy curls for decades, but her surprising secret to staying youthful — which she shared with “Notting Hill” screenwriter Richard Curtis in the February 2024 issue of British Vogue — might come as a surprise.
The 56-year-old “Pretty Woman” star sat down with the rom-com legend to chat about their 25-year friendship, her role in “Notting Hill” and “The Seven Faces of Julia Roberts, among other topics, telling Curtis that she blamed her young appearance on genetics and “the love of a good man.”
Roberts — who models a custom red Gucci jacket and hot pants on the cover — disagreed with the producer and director when he claimed she appeared “unchanged” since they first met in the ’90s, but admitted that her late parents had “very good genes.”
“Not to say I’m unchanged, because I did see a picture earlier of Tom Hanks and me from a movie, and we looked like we had been ironed,” she joked.
Curtis pressed on, saying, “Vogue readers will want to know whether or not you use any artificial methods to preserve your lustrous youth.”
The “Runaway Bride” actress played coy, replying, “Pickling. I put my head in the jar every other Saturday for 18 hours. It does wonders. The smell is awful.”
Eventually she gave in, telling Curtis, “No – serious answer. Good genes, leading a life that is fulfilling, and I have said this – and I say it usually as kind of a joke – but I do believe in the love of a good man.”
Roberts, who has been married to husband Daniel Moder for 21 years, said his support makes all the difference.
“I believe that my husband loves me and cares for me in a way that makes me feel deeply, deeply happy, she said. “And anytime you see someone who’s happy, it doesn’t matter how old they are.”
Aging aside, Curtis asked the A-lister about her different faces, asking if she ever saw her reflection and thought “Oh, that is a famous face?” rather than her everyday persona.
She said “no,” adding, “One would be make-up-less and one would be made up. That’s the most sophomoric difference. But I can’t compartmentalize myself in that way.”
When it came to her “Film Face,” Roberts told Curtis she “loathed” the costumes in “Notting Hill” and even wore her own clothing in one of the flick’s most iconic scenes when she tells Hugh Grant, “I’m also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.”
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The “Erin Brokovich” star — who wears a simple baby blue cardigan and T-shirt with a velvet skirt and flip-flops in the scene — said she’d asked her driver to go grab the pieces from her flat because she was unhappy with the costume department’s choices for her character.
“I was always disappointed you weren’t wearing a better costume that day,” Curtis quipped.
She also weighed in on her fashion choices for her latest project, “Leave the World Behind,” sharing that she likes to dress in “a theme” on press tours and that “this film is hot pants and hottier pants,” as evidenced by a pink short suit she wore in November.
It seems like her cover girl look fits right in.