My Best Friend’s Wedding is almost old enough to rent a car!
Julia Roberts reflected on the beloved rom-com’s silver anniversary with E! News’ Francesca Amiker on the April 13 episode of Daily Pop while promoting her new Starz series, Gaslit.
“So many people have someone that they can see themselves as in the movie, and I also just think that we really got lucky coming together,” she said, “None of us knew each other before we made the movie, and we just had a really great chemistry. It just worked. I mean, we all really liked each other.”
Roberts has remained “really great friends” with co-star Dermot Mulroney, something she says is a “testament to the beautiful time we all had making this film together.”
Another close friend of Roberts’ is her Gaslit co-star Sean Penn, who plays former U.S. Attorney General John N. Mitchell in the upcoming limited series, which premieres April 24. She revealed that the actor’s amazing transformation into the political figure was so intense that she “wouldn’t see Sean for weeks.”
Julia Roberts & Danny Moder’s Family Photos
“He would get to work before me,” she shared. “He would be getting his makeup done. When I got to work, he would already look like John Mitchell, and then I’d be gone before he was transformed back into Sean Penn.”
Though she didn’t undergo the same physical transformation as her co-star, Roberts did experience an emotional one in preparation for her role as his wife and Watergate whistle-blower Martha Mitchell.
“She’s so big and she’s so clearly this outspoken and opinionated person, but she also was very devoted to her husband and her family,” Roberts said. “She was very shy. She really didn’t like public speaking. There’s all these paradoxes about her that were fun to get to play with.”
Similar to her Gaslit character, Roberts understands the importance of speaking your mind, something she and her husband, Daniel Moder, find “really critical” to teach their kids: twins Hazel and Phinnaeus, 17, and Henry, 14.
“I think it’s our personal responsibility to advocate for ourselves, and I think that my husband and I both are people of strong convictions and opinions and compassions and I think that we try to instill that in our kids as much by example as by preaching,” she said. “It’s an interesting society and culture that they’re coming to age within, and I think that… they bear a huge responsibility—more than I think I did at their age—to speak their minds and speak up for themselves and advocate for the things that they believe in.”
Gaslit premieres April 24 on Starz.
