I want my children to be able to read my facial expressions, actress says

Aug 5, 2010 17:31 GMT  ·  By

With a smile as bright and enchanting as Julia Roberts has, it’s almost impossible to imagine she’d ever feel pressure to fight the signs of growing old. Yet the actress too, as gorgeous as she may be, has moments when she feels insecure about her looks but that’s not to say she’ll run to get Botox or surgery, she says in a recent interview with Elle magazine, as cited by People.

Celebrities, and especially female stars, are under constant pressure – and we’re not talking here just looking good; stars have to be impeccable and irreproachable whenever they go out. In front of the cameras, they have makeup and lighting to rely on to make them stunning, which is why problems begin when they have to match the image of themselves on film to real life. Julia is aware of that but she draws the line to getting Botox or surgery to look a certain way.

“I want my kids to know when I’m [upset], when I'm happy and when I’m confounded. Your face tells a story and it shouldn’t be a story about your drive to the doctor’s office,” she tells Elle about her refusal to get Botox. “It’s unfortunate that we live in such a panicked, dysmorphic society where women don’t even give themselves a chance to see what they’ll look like as older persons. I want to have some idea of what I’ll look like before I start cleaning the slates,” she adds, speaking about women’s obsession of turning back the hands of time through whatever means they can.

Another myth the actress recently set out to debunk is that women with a little more meat on their bones are not as attractive as those who are slim. Even if she didn’t put it in so many words, Roberts tackled the never-ending controversy of thin versus curvy in a very delicate manner, saying that, for her latest part, she gained some weight but was not sorry she did. Starting August 13, Roberts will be seen in “Eat Pray Love,” based on the best-selling book of the same name. While shooting for the part, Julia did a lot of eating so that naturally translated into a few extra pounds – for which she has absolutely no regrets.

“They did go to great elaborate pains to make great food that I had to eat. Endlessly eat – in the heat. But it was delicious. Ryan [Murphy, the film’s director] keeps telling people I gained 10 pounds. It was a little less than that. And I loved every pound. [I’ve eaten] tons, tons. It can’t slow me down,” Roberts was saying a few days ago, as we also reported.

Follow me on Twitter @ElenaGorgan