She was born Julie Fiona Roberts. She later changed her name to Julia as there was already another actress whose name was Julie Roberts. This happened when she applied for the Screen Actors Guild card and found another member actress named Julie Roberts.

•Former model for the Click agency.

•Julia is extremely fond of animals and initially wanted to be a veterinarian

•Before she became famous, Julia scooped ice cream cones at Baskin Robbins and sold shoes.

•Roberts was the first actress to appear on the cover of Vogue and the first woman to land the cover of GQ.

•She has been named one of People magazine’s ’50 Most Beautiful People in the World’ 11 times, tied with Halle Berry.

•In 2001 Ladies Home Journal ranked her as the 11th most powerful woman in America, beating out then national security advisor Condoleezza Rice and first lady Laura Bush.

•Lent her celebrity name to help raise money for research to develop a cure for Rett Syndrome.

•Was considered for the role of Poison Ivy in Batman & Robin.

•Turned down the Sharon Stone role in Basic Instinct.

•Turned down leading role in Sleepless in Seattle which went to Meg Ryan.

•She turned down the female lead in 1998’s Shakespeare in Love, a role which eventually went to Gwyneth Paltrow (who won an Oscar for that role).

•Beat out Sandra Bullock for the role of Maggie Carpenter in Runaway Bride.

•Lies on her back to have her make-up applied before going onto a film set — she insists it gives her a relaxed look.

•After George Clooney and Brad Pitt found out that she was going to be joining them in Ocean’s Eleven, they sent her a card that read “We heard that you get 20 per film” and in it was a $20 bill; the joke was that she reportedly gets $20 million per film.

•Canadian singer-songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk wrote the song Julia about her after seeing her at a Los Angeles restaurant.

•A 9,000-year-old female skeleton excavated in Bulgaria in November 2004, was called by the archaeologists ‘Julia Roberts’ because of the perfect teeth it had. They said that woman would have had a perfect smile — just like the actress.

•Because Erin Brockovich-Ellis is right handed and Roberts is not, she had to learn to use her right hand for Erin Brockovich.

•The Alchemist is one of her favourite books.

•At the London premiere of Notting Hill Julia caused a scandal by turning up in a sleeveless red dress dotted with silver sequins and waving to the crowd... without having shaved her armpits.

•She picked up the habit of knitting whilst filming The Pelican Brief and she now knits on every movie set to pass the time. She likes to knit sweaters.

•John Grisham had Julia in mind when he created the character Darby for his novel The Pelican Brief.

•While filming a tough sequence for Sleeping with the Enemy (1991), she had to spend several hours in front of the camera in only bra and panties being repeatedly doused with water. Worn out by the situation, she demanded that anyone in the crew who wouldn’t strip down to his or her underwear could leave the set. She got her way.

•Was allegedly so difficult on the set of 1991’s Hook that the crew nicknamed her ‘Tinkerhell.’ The film’s director, Steven Spielberg, said it was unlikely he would ever work with her again.

• Always smokes Marlboro Lights in movies.