Eric Roberts has a bone to pick with these flowers.
The 68-year-old, who is Julia Roberts‘ older brother, shared that he’s not a fan of one of her most critically acclaimed movies, “Steel Magnolias.”
In his memoir “Runaway Train: Or the Story of My Life So Far,” Roberts was candid about the 1989 dramedy.
“Julia was good in ‘Mystic Pizza,’ great in ‘Pretty Woman,’ but not so much in ‘Steel Magnolias,’ in my opinion, even though it brought Julia her first Academy Award nomination,” he wrote, per Entertainment Weekly on Sept. 20. “I don’t want to sound like an actor talking, or a jealous sibling, but I don’t think her performance held up in that movie.”
He added, “When I saw her in ‘Steel Magnolias,’ I thought, ‘Okay. Good. She’s almost a good actor, and one day she’s gonna be one.’”
But the “Dancing With the Stars” contestant didn’t just have a problem with his sister’s performance, he also had feedback for the other cast members.
“In fact, I think all those brilliant women — Sally Field, Dolly Parton, Olympia Dukakis, Shirley MacLaine, Daryl Hannah — overacted their asses off in ‘Steel Magnolias,’” penned Roberts. “Nobody’s great in that movie. They all chewed a lot of scenery, and we know that if an actor cries on film, they go to the top of the class.”
“They get the Oscar nod because crying gets a lot of credit. It’s the big joke in all acting classes, even in the great Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio. Crying and dying bring home the bacon!”
Roberts also claimed that the 56-year-old “Pretty Woman” star received positive reviews for portraying the Louisianian character due to her real-life Southern roots.
“I also think another reason she got an Oscar nod for ‘Steel Magnolias’ was her authenticity as a sweet, small-town Southern girl,” he recounted. “That’s what she was, after all, or at least that’s how she started off. I don’t know if she had a dialect coach try to eradicate her Southern accent, but if so, luckily for her it didn’t take.”
He also credits his younger sibling’s stardom to their family’s Southern heritage.
“I think that’s a big part of her appeal — along with her boffo good looks and killer smile — her Southern accent and mannerisms,” he noted in the memoir. “Beauty like that can be off-putting, especially for other women, but Julia’s down-home manner made her seem like your best friend. There’s a certain colorful and enchanting quality to Southern speech.”
Later in the chapter, he reflected on how the 1990 romcom “Pretty Woman” catapulted the Oscar winner to higher fame.
“Everyone loved that movie and Julia’s role in it,” the Golden Globe winner shared. “I was working with George C. Scott (who’d won an Oscar for ‘Patton’ in 1971) at the time, and he told me in his gruff voice that he thought her movie was going to go through the roof. It did. I watched it happen: Oh my god, Julia’s becoming a superstar!”
But the father of actress Emma Roberts was “not really” jealous of Julia’s success: “For one thing, we were never going to be up for the same parts.”
However, he did confess that he wasn’t ready for the attention he faced after becoming the brother of America’s sweetheart. “When suddenly this rare and rarefied thing occurred, this worldwide phenomenon of Julia’s stardom, it shoved me into the public eye in a different way,” he wrote.
At some points, the constant attention felt inappropriate.
“First, there were all kinds of suspicions cast upon us — even outlandish and creepy rumors of incest. I don’t exactly know where that started,” he recalled. “It could have been a dumb idea of what Southerners were capable of — a mean-spirited swipe at the South. But beyond that, it seemed as if there wasn’t room in the public imagination for both Julia and me — that we were in competition with each other.”
Along with his critiques, he also apologized to Julia for saying he was responsible for her successful career.
He was already an established actor when his little sister moved to New York in 1985 to pursue her own career. Roberts was also struggling with a cocaine addiction at the time.
“If it wasn’t for me, there would be no Julia Roberts and no Emma Roberts as celebrities, as actresses,” he told Vanity Fair in 2018, adding, “and I’m very proud of that.”
These days, he’s had a change of heart.
“I hope Julia will accept this public apology,” he wrote in his book (out now), per People. “It was an asinine thing to have said.”
The “Dark Night” alum went on to say that he believes his drug addiction damaged his relationship with Julia and his other sister, Lisa, when they were younger.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they suffered from PTSD from when it was dangerous to be around me,” admitted Roberts. “Lisa and Julia needed love and protection — instead they got fear and uncertainty.”
