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Julia Roberts
Julia Roberts
The real Erin Brockovich was a tall, twice divorced mother-of-three who wore tight skirts, skimpy tops and had a sassy wit. Not the kind of character you would normally associate with Julia Roberts, the sex symbol with the wrap-around smile.
But the 32-year-old star of Pretty Woman and Notting Hill has turned in the performance of her screen career and defied her own typecasting with the film Erin Brockovich.
In reality Brockovich was a file clerk for a small Los Angeles law firm who stumbled on a water pollution scandal in the early 1990s. The powerful US corporation Pacific Gas and Electric had contaminated the water supply of the small Californian town of Hinkley with toxic chromium, which caused serious health problems for residents.
Drawing her reluctant boss Ed Masry into the case, Brockovich researched the scandal and, through Masry, filed a lawsuit on behalf of 650 plaintiffs. Three years later in 1996, the mighty PG&E buckled and settled for 333 million dollars in damages, the largest pay-out of its kind in American history.
Directed by Steven Soderbergh, who was responsible for the slick Out Of Sight, and written by Susannah Grant, Erin Brockovich tells the behind-the-scenes story of how this powerless mother used her cleverness and sex appeal to challenge a 21 billion dollar corporation and win compensation for the unfortunate victims.
In the process, Brockovich turned herself into a folk hero. These days she is a self-taught specialist in water pollution cases and almost upstaged Julia Roberts at the film's premiere with her low-cut gown.
It was just the kind of real-life, meaningful role Roberts was searching for after all the fluffy romantic comedies.
"It slowly revealed itself to be the perfect decision for me. Making this was an ultimate experience," says the actress, who was desperate to drop the "cutesy" tag after a series of indifferently received films.
"It was almost like the end of a long personal quest as an actress. If I had a quest for the last however many years I've been making movies, it was unknowingly to find the experience I've just had."
While she is aware of her box office clout in romantic comedies, Roberts says she has got to be allowed to do other things.
"If people support me they must support my desire to be a good actor. To be a good actor it's my obligation to try different roles. People would quickly get bored with me if I did the same thing all the time."
Brockovich may have looked like a trailer park bimbo, but really she was a clever, determined woman, says Roberts.
Soderbergh adds: "It's rare to find human-sized heroes and I was really just captivated by this woman and her relationship with Ed (Masry).
"The fact that it's a story about people who made certain sacrifices and stood on certain principles."
Albert Finney portrays Masry, the rumpled small-time lawyer near retirement who risks everything when he is drawn into challenging PG&E by a determined Brockovich.
Both the real Brockovich and Masry make brief on-screen appearances in the film as extras. But most of the screen time belongs to Roberts, with Finney playing a clever foil.
Finney says that having worked with her closely on this film he now knows why Roberts is Hollywood's leading - and best paid - actress.
"She's so watchable. As far as her public is concerned Julia could probably just do romantic comedies if she wanted to. But on this film she just went out on a limb," he says.
"What she has, apart from genuine star quality, is wit."
She also got a reported 20 million dollars for the role, making her the highest paid actress of all time.
Certainly after the box office success of Notting Hill and Runaway Bride last year, Roberts is at the peak of her power. But don't expect her back on the screen too quickly.
"I decided when I took the film that it would probably be my last for a while," she says.
Instead, she wants to devote more time to her 80-acre ranch with her six horses, seven dogs and steady flow of family and friends - not to mention the man in her life, the actor Benjamin Bratt.
Ever since she burst on to the Hollywood scene nearly a decade ago with Pretty Woman Roberts has had her private life avidly chronicled. She famously called off her wedding to Kiefer Sutherland days before the ceremony nine years ago, and was married to the singer Lyle Lovett in 1993, but they divorced two years later.
But now she says she is finding a new level of peace and happiness in her life with the dashing 6ft 2ins tall Bratt.
"I don't feel trapped and I don't feel like anybody but me has the power over my life. I feel liberated," she enthuses.
"I think I deserve to be a happy person, but I also know the blessing that I crossed paths with this person."
She describes him as a strong, powerful force. "I'm all for women ruling the world, but he's a man and that's nice,'' she says cryptically.
In keeping with her new down-to-earth approach to life, Roberts took a most unstar-like spartan trek to Mongolia at the end of last year to make a documentary on wild horses.
At heart she's still the small town girl from Smyrna, Georgia.
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