Emma Roberts Talks Paris, ‘Pretty Woman’ and Big Teeth
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PARIS — Emma Roberts took it as a sign of good luck that a bug had landed in her Champagne on Monday at the open-air dinner in Paris that jeweler Fred threw in her honor, and the Pretty Woman jewelry range she fronts.
The ebullient American actress, wearing a puff-shouldered dress by Carolina Herrera and carrying a feather-y Jimmy Choo clutch, was handed a fresh glass of Ruinart just in time to toast Fred chief executive officer Charles Leung and the guests seated at long tables appointed with pink flowers, red lollipops and personalized napkins.
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The collection of heart-shaped jewelry has been a hit for LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton-owned Fred, and helped introduce Millennials and Gen Z to the hit 1990 movie “Pretty Woman” that propelled Roberts’ aunt Julia to superstardom and made a fancy necklace a memorable prop in a pivotal scene.
“It’s one of those movies that just doesn’t get old,” Roberts enthused during an interview the next day at her suite at the Crillon hotel. “I remember seeing it for the first time, it was on TV and I was probably like 13. I was completely captured by the wardrobe, obviously the iconic jewelry and my aunt’s smile….I remember laughing out loud, but then also it’s very emotional, too.”
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The “American Horror Story” and “Unfabulous” actress shot the spots for the Pretty Woman jewelry remotely about 18 months ago, but could only now make the trip to France to meet with Fred executives and local press.
Among the most nerve-wracking things about the campaign was wearing red lipstick, which her mother had long banished from the house, figuring her beautiful young daughter did not need much makeup.
“It was just funny because even though I’m 30, I was still nervous to show her the red lipstick on an 8-foot billboard,” she said, referring to the cardboard images hung up for the Paris event.
While holed up doing interviews on Tuesday, Roberts confessed she had managed to buy enough on a single shopping excursion to warrant extra luggage for cashmere sweaters and cotton tote bags from concept store Merci, coffee from Verlet, and books from Shakespeare and Company and W.H. Smith, where Roberts scored “W-3: A Memoir” by Bette Howland that she can’t put down.
A reading enthusiast, Roberts founded the online book club Belletrist with her best friend Karah Preiss, and it has morphed into a production house that adapts their favorite titles for the screen.
First up is “First Kill,” which Roberts describes as a “Juliet and Juliet love story” involving a family of vampires and vampire hunters. The upcoming Netflix series is based on a short story by V.E. Schwab.
Following that is “Tell Me Lies,” described by Roberts as a “relationship thriller” for Hulu based on Carola Lovering’s novel and starring Grace Van Patten.
Roberts, who gave birth to her first child in December, said she’s planning to ride out the balance of the year without making movies in order to enjoy her son Rhodes’ first Thanksgiving and Christmas.
She just wrapped two movies: the psychological thriller “Abandoned” about a couple raising a baby in the middle of nowhere amid strange occurrences, and the “carefree, uplifting” romantic comedy “About Fate,” set in Boston and co-starring Thomas Mann.
With Roberts’ father Eric an accomplished star of small and big screens, has her son shown any signs of inheriting the acting gene yet?
“He’s nine months old,” she said with an incredulous and toothy laugh, then confessing: “Well, it looks like he’s getting the Roberts teeth. His front teeth are coming in, and they’re quite big.”
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