Julia Roberts Nears the Summit

The Oscars are still weeks away, but Julia Roberts is already looking like a winner.

As the 33-year-old actress strolls into a suite at Beverly Hills' Regent Beverly Wilshire - the same hotel which, only 10 years ago, provided the setting for her breakthrough movie "Pretty Woman'' (1990) - she seems every inch the movie star, with all the poise and confidence you'd expect from the consensus favorite for this year's Academy Award as Best Actress.

Much has changed in Roberts' life since "Pretty Woman,'' but one thing has remained constant: She still looks gorgeous, with her dark hair pulled severely back to show off her knockout brown eyes and that famous, mile-wide smile.

Nonchalantly she drapes her red-leather jacket over a chair, revealing a bright-green tank top embossed with sparkly silver lettering spelling "Master Lee's Kung Fu.'' Her long legs are clad in blue jeans and cowboy boots as she sips some bottled water and settles in to talk about her latest film, the off-the-wall comedy "The Mexican.''

"The Mexican,'' which will open nationwide on March 2, is a wacky, screwball farce which teams Roberts with her masculine counterpart, the equally gorgeous Brad Pitt. The running joke is that their characters are lovers who can't go more than two minutes without disagreeing.

Julia plays a mouthy dingbat who - when she isn't fighting with her inept, small-time-hood boyfriend (Pitt) - dreams of driving off to Las Vegas to become a croupier.

He's sent to Mexico to retrieve a valuable antique gun - the "Mexican'' of the title - with disastrous results. Meanwhile she heads west by herself, along the way encountering a gay hit man with a heart of jelly, played by James Gandolfini, cable-television's Tony Soprano.

Both Roberts and Pitt took huge pay cuts to make the $35 million movie. For her, Roberts says, the motivations were the chance to work with Pitt and the opportunity to tackle the kind of way-out comic role that hadn't come her way previously.

"She's such a mess of a girl,'' the actress says. "She looked like a big tangle of yarn that I thought, if I could straighten out, would be something really useful. I was intrigued by sorting out this girl, all her kinetic energy and self-help lingo. I loved that stuff, and thought it was hilarious.''

As for working with Pitt, apparently she liked it well enough to do it again: Both will appear in the upcoming remake of the old Rat Pack heist flick "Ocean's Eleven'' (1960), joining George Clooney, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle and assorted other big names under the eye of director Steven Soderbergh, likewise Oscar-nominated for "Erin Brockovich.''

And there is talk that Roberts and Pitt may even do a third picture together, co-starring in "Replay,'' in which Pitt would play a 43-year-old man who dies of a heart attack and finds himself back in his college days.

It's a strange time in her life, as she tries to promote her upcoming film while the steady beat of Oscar publicity draws the public eye back to her previous one, "Erin Brockovich.''

Her performance as Brockovich, the brash, cleavage-flashing real-life crusader who wouldn't take no for an answer and went toe to toe with Pacific Gas and Electric on behalf of a group of citizens harmed by industrial pollutants, dazzled critics and audiences alike. As a result she finds herself favored to win the Oscar on March 25, capping a career renaissance which, in the past three years, has taken her from the brink of dropping off Hollywood's A-list to arguably its top star. At the very least, she's Tinseltown's most popular and best-paid actress.

It's no wonder, then, that the Julia Roberts of 2001 is a very different person from the young actress I clearly remember from my first interview with her, back in l990, when she was a comparative unknown starring opposite her then-boyfriend Kiefer Sutherland in the thriller "Flatliners.''

Even then, however, there was a sense that she was destined for great things. She had already lit up the screen in "Mystic Pizza'' (l988), then picked up an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her role as a dying young bride in "Steel Magnolias'' (1989).

After "Pretty Woman,'' of course, that early buzz became a chorus of cheers. "Sleeping with the Enemy'' (l991), "Dying Young'' (1991) and "The Pelican Brief'' (l993) solidified her standing among Hollywood's elite. Her career hit a soft patch in the mid-1990s, but the hit "My Best Friend's Wedding'' (l997) kicked off a winning streak that has included "Conspiracy Theory'' (1997), "Stepmom'' (1998), "Notting Hill'' (l998), "Runaway Bride'' (l999) and "Erin Brockovich'' to put her back on top of the heap.

Even in 1990 Roberts had that megawatt smile, dominating her fragile, vulnerable face. She was more naive in those days, and less guarded in her conversation.

But fame, along with several highly publicized fiascos in her private life - including the last-minute cancellation of her wedding to Sutherland and a short-lived marriage to singer Lyle Lovett - have forced her to tread warily around the press, even as her No. 1 status at the box office fuels the public's hunger for stories about her.

These days she comes across as more brash, slightly jaded and certainly more cynical. Sometimes it's hard to see the Roberts we once knew, buried as she is underneath defensive answers and a sort of in-your-face cockiness.

She initially rejects any suggestion that she's a very different person than she was in 1990.

"No, I don't believe there has been a dramatic change in me,'' she says. "I'm still the daughter of my parents, and the foundation of me is the same.''

She stops to take a swig from her water bottle.

"And I'm slightly better equipped to make that opinion than you,'' she adds testily. "But I'm open to your observation, that's fine with me.''

From her own point of view, she says, as an up-and-coming actress she was much shyer and less ebullient.

Nowadays, of course, she's an Oscar nominee, basking in public favor and savoring her romance of several years with actor Benjamin Bratt, whom Roberts - who had previously tried to keep their relationship out of the spotlight - publicly acknowledged after winning a Golden Globe for "Erin Brockovich'' as the person she came home to share her success with.

Thinking it over, Roberts warms slightly.

"Yeah, you're not incorrect,'' she admits, "because I sit here as a very happy girl. Why wouldn't I be? But, you know, every time I talk to the press they say I seem happier than ever. Maybe it's true or maybe it's what people want - they want you to be so happy, which I look at as a kind of perverse way of support.''

She's still reluctant to answer questions about her private life, especially persistent rumors that she and Bratt plan to marry soon and even have their eyes on children.

"Well, how should I respond to that kind of indictment - make that interrogation?'' she says. "What would my appropriate response be?''

She pauses and then smiles.

"Apparently we got married three weeks ago in Las Vegas,'' she says, "with Erin Brockovich as my maid of honor. Someone told me that a good time was had by all.

"It was just the vapors of Vegas,'' she says. "Can you imagine me getting married there? I hate it.

"I don't mean that,'' she adds hastily. "It's just not my place.''

So how does this happy lady view her Oscar chances?

"I'm on this calendar page, man, and you're way down the road,'' she says, laughing. "Stick with me here.

"Or, as Brad would say, inside I'm doing cartwheels upside down naked.''