BEVERLY HILLS, California — Julia Roberts had to correct her new director, Sam Esmail (Mr. Robot), about the plot of My Best Friend’s Wedding.
“We weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend. We were best friends.”
The classic 1997 rom-com came up while Roberts was promoting her role on Amazon’s Homecoming (premièring Nov. 2), in which she shares the screen with her Wedding co-star Dermot Mulroney for the third time.
After playing best friends in Wedding, “he was my sister’s boyfriend in August, Osage County, and finally my boyfriend (in Homecoming). It only took 30 years.”
Homecoming is based on the popular Gimlet Media podcast, and follows a caseworker at a questionable transitional centre for soldiers returning home from battle.
It’s the first regular role on a TV series for Roberts (she appeared in the 2014 HBO movie The Normal Heart), but she told reporters at the Television Critics Association summer press tour that she doesn’t really see a big difference between acting on the big and small screens.
“I guess I didn’t really think of it as small screen/big screen. My television is very big,” she joked, before adding, “there isn’t [a distinction] anymore. For everything the bar is so high.”
Roberts, however, quickly adopted the habit of many TV actors and creators, by keeping a tight lid on plot spoilers. When asked if she could talk about her character’s arc in the season, she simply said, “Nope.”
“We just want to keep the suspense,” she added, vaguely encouraging fans to “imagine the possibilities of the things.”
She also wouldn’t entertain questions about whether she’d stick around TV for a potential second season.
“I think we’re going to peel one onion at a time.”
But she was effusive about her relationship with Mulroney, and he was happy to be working with her for the third time, too.
“It’s always been such a privilege to work with Julia,” Mulroney said. “[In] these three jobs, even in this where I have a more modest sized role in the narrative, I’ve had incredible scenes with this incredible actor.”
Roberts looked out at the gathered press and asked, “Did everybody get that?”
Mulroney laughed. “Did everybody get how great it is to have a buddy like Jules?”
