Filmed in Georgia: Julia Roberts had dreams of being a journalist or veterinarian

Filmed in Georgia is a periodic column by Frank Hotchkiss, the Savannah author of Playing with Fire at local bookstores and on Amazon. Contact Frank with recommendations for future film reviews at online@savannahnow.com.

Julia Roberts, born Julia Fiona Roberts in Smyrna, Georgia, on Oct. 28, 1967, will always be "Jule" to family and friends despite rocketing to international fame (and eventual fortune) with her charming portrayal of a prostitute in her eighth film, Pretty Woman, with Richard Gere. The movie came just after her heart-rending role as a young mother dying of renal failure in Steel Magnolias, but it was Woman that fired the 5-foot-8-inch actor's rocket into orbit.

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Julia Roberts had considered being a journalist or veterinarian

How could a relatively young woman from suburban Atlanta have ever expected to appear in films with a remarkable series of international movie stars including Denzel Washington (The Pelican Brief), Tim Robbins (The Player), Kevin Bacon and Kiefer Sutherland (Flatliners), Hugh Grant (Notting Hill) and Albert Finney (Erin Brokovich)?

Roberts' ambition had not been to be an actress. She had thought of being a journalist or a veterinarian initially, but when her older brother, Eric, had early success on stage and screen, the show biz bug bit hard. She went with her older sister, actress Lisa Roberts Gillan, to New York, and was encouraged to audition by an agent friend of her brother's, as she told Jane Pauley on CBS Sunday Morning earlier this year.

That chance meeting led to the films Satisfaction and Mystic Pizza (which had a small part for Matt Damon, her eventual co-star in the Oceans films) in 1988, followed by Steel Magnolias in with Shirley McLain, Olympia Dukakis, Dolly Parton, Daryl Hannah and Sally Field in 1989.

She returned to Georgia ― right here to Savannah ― with 1995's Something to Talk About, in which her struggling character had lost dreams of being a ― wait for it ― large animal vet. Five years later, at the dawn of the millennium, Roberts accepted the Academy Award for best actress in Erin Brokovich. That achievement capped a decade of nearly 20 films.

She slowed to about one film a year over the past two decades to raise a family with her husband, cinematographer Danny Moder. Together, they lead a rather private life with their three children on a ranch in Taos, New Mexico, and a second home in New York City.

The toll fame takes rendered in the character of Anna Scott

Few people outside the world of film understand how such success can alter one’s life forever. First to go is personal freedom. There is no more casual strolling in the mall or down a popular shopping street, no routinely boarding the next commercial flight. Disguises become vital – the oft-seen baseball cap, dark (and probably large) sunglasses, no make-up. Judy Garland once said fame was like having someone eating your face.

Next to go will likely be close friends and, sometimes, even family members, because previous relationships are no longer on an even keel – you carry more weight and are moving in circles few others do. You are not just another guest at the table. You are famous!

Roberts’ film Notting Hill captures this dilemma wonderfully in the portrayal of a famous film star who wanders into a small English book store with its unknown owner, portrayed by Grant. Her A-lister Anna Scott falls in love with the wonderfully inept, honest and sweet protagonist despite every circumstance standing in the way. Among other things, the film has a cast of scruffy and oddball characters that give it a unique flavor in stark contrast to the sophisticated and strictly controlled world of Scott, the part Roberts plays so well.

What happens when you strike it rich and hit a home run? Sure, people answer your calls. The media barks at your door. People also line up with new roles and appearances, which are now yours to weigh. When you’ve hit a home run like Pretty Woman, the professional world may be at your feet but the next step can put you tumbling over the cliff into obscurity, for fame and popularity are slippery slopes indeed. They come and they go.

What is particularly interesting with Roberts' role in Notting Hill is how perfectly it portrays this dilemma, and how well she enacts it. As her character, Anna Scott, says in Notting Hill. “Fame is really nothing.”

For those who think Roberts is just another pretty woman, her unspoken scenes prove them emphatically wrong. In Notting Hill, when she looks at the book store owner for a long silent moment and then impulsively kisses him, the emotions – indecision, fear, hope, desire – flicker across her face, proof positive that the woman can act.

The fame thing isn’t really real, you know.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Georgia's own Julia Roberts became an actress by chance, a star through hard work