Listen, Julia Roberts did not want to take such a long break from rom-coms, but writers and producers forced her hand. It wasn’t that the opportunity never rose or she swore off the genre, but for the last 20 years, rom-coms have not been “good enough.”
“Here’s the thing: If I’d thought something was good enough, I would have done it,” Roberts tells the New York Times in a new interview.
Now, it’s not that she’s wrong, it’s just a hard truth to swallow. While My Best Friend’s Wedding may be one of this writer’s least favorite rom-coms, Roberts is right about the lack of high quality rom-coms over the last two decades.
“People sometimes misconstrue the amount of time that’s gone by that I haven’t done a romantic comedy as my not wanting to do one,” Roberts says. “If I had read something that I thought was that Notting Hill level of writing or My Best Friend’s Wedding level of madcap fun, I would do it. They didn’t exist until this movie that I just did that Ol Parker wrote and directed.”
“This movie” she references is Ol Parker’s Ticket To Paradise, which is set to premiere in October of this year. Roberts stars opposite George Clooney as exes who run off to Bali in pursuit of their daughter (played by Kaitlyn Dever) in order to stop her from making the same mistakes they did. For Roberts, the film only worked with her Ocean’s Eleven co-star. Lucky for her, the feeling was mutual.
“Lo and behold, George felt it only worked with me. Somehow we are both able to do it, and off we went,” Robert says.
Like fellow actors Jennifer Lopez, Sandra Bullock, and Meg Ryan, Roberts became a leading lady of romantic comedies with Pretty Woman, Mystic Pizza, Notting Hill, and My Best Friend’s Wedding. With three out of four of these names returning to the genre, maybe rom-coms will have a renaissance once more.
