The actress spoke up about the high-profile scandal that surfaced last week at the promotion of her latest film, Ben Is Back, in UK.
The 51-year-old Oscar winner, Julia Roberts, who was recently in the UK to promote her latest family drama, Ben Is Back, shared her views on the scandal that has resulted in 50 people being charged, including Hollywood stars Felicity Huffman of Desperate Housewives fame and Fuller House-star Lori Loughlin. Allegedly these individuals paid money to fraudulently secure their children’s admissions into elite universities across the country.
When asked about the scam, the Pretty Woman actress told British television channel, ITV, “That to me is so sad because I feel, from an outsider, that it says a little bit, ‘I don’t have enough faith in you’.”
However, for Julia Roberts, the story of the college admissions scandal seems like the antithesis of her role in the emotional drama, Ben Is Back, in which she essays the character of Holly, the mother of a troubled, drug-addicted 19-year-old Ben (Lucas Hedges).
“I feel that in the film, this mother is trying to say, ‘I have so much faith in you, I have both our faiths until you can find the faith in yourself again’,” she added.
The mother of 14-year-old twins Hazel and Finn and 11-year-old son Henry, Roberts further gave insight into how much effort she and her husband, Danny Moder, put into keeping their children grounded and not let their parents’ fame go to their heads. “My husband and I are very aligned on that front, I think that we live a very normal experience with our children.”
She continued, “Obviously we have advantages that we didn’t have as children. But I think that’s the unique part of it, coming from the childhood that I have. You do need to know how to make your bed and do your laundry and make one meal. These are important life skills. They have to run their own race. They have to have their own experience.”
Directed and written by Peter Hedges, Ben Is Back, hit theatres in the US in December last year and tells the poignant tale of a mother, Holly who struggles to keep her son, Ben, safe and healthy in the face of addiction and its consequences.
