Roll Over Roberts

So I’m sitting around wondering, as I often do, what is Julia Roberts up to these days? Then I realize that’s not the question I should be asking – not under any circumstances, really. The real question is this: who cares anymore? To which I respond with a resounding, "not me!"

I submit that Julia Roberts' over-exposure on-screen and off, fueled by questionable choices in her "private" life, can only mean one thing: she’s done. We’ve had it. It’s time for her to hand over her official Golden Child sash. Which begets another query: to whom should she hand it? After much careful consideration, I have the perfect nominee…

ME!


I’ve never won an office before. Perhaps it’s because I’ve never run, but I don’t know if that would have made any difference. But this one I’m sure about. I think I’m the ideal candidate for the new Golden Child and in the following paragraphs, I’ll share with you the startling similarities between Ms. Roberts and myself that back my position.

You had no idea, did you?

First, and perhaps most obviously, we both have huge mouths. Hers, in the sense that it is, well, physically huge and, if you ask me, quite off-putting. Mine, in the sense that I seem to completely lack an edit function.

Recently she was widely panned for her Broadway appearance in Three Days of Rain. I can relate. I received mixed reviews for my grade eight performance as Beatrice in The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds. (In my own defense, our school septic system overflowed the day before opening and I was forced to perform my debut role on a flatbed truck in the nearby United Church parking lot.)

We both played clarinet in middle school.

Or try this one on for size… Our romantic histories are not dissimilar. We have both had "feelings" for Kiefer Sutherland in the past yet neither of us saw that dream come to fruition.

Roberts doesn’t speak to her actor brother, Eric. While I do speak with my sister, albeit rarely, I can say with confidence that if my brother were Eric Roberts, I probably wouldn’t speak to him either. No matter how many times I’ve watched Star 80.

Am I freaking you out yet or what?

Once you start examining her exhausting filmography, you’ll find even more eerie comparisons between the two of us. For example, one of Ms. Roberts’ first films was a little indie flick called Mystic Pizza – and I love pizza. Too weird!

Next, in Steel Magnolias, Roberts won many hearts – and an inexplicable Oscar nod – playing the terminally ill daughter of Sally Field. I can modestly assert that some of my own best performances were as a child, faking illness to avoid having to go to school. (The inequity of the comparison being that, unlike Roberts, I was rewarded only with brusque instructions to march my ass to the bus stop right this minute or it would be marched there for me.)

It doesn’t stop there. Of course it doesn’t. She was in a film called Sleeping with the Enemy. I, in turn, have slept with several people I now consider enemies.

Last but definitely not least, Roberts finally won an Oscar – and about every other award known to man – for her role as Erin Brockovich, where she played a fearless, spunky attorney’s assistant who winds up seeking justice for a town whose contaminated drinking water has been killing its citizens. I, on the other hand, have fearlessly and spunkily drunk many a glass of water of dubious origin – and survived. Who’s the hero in this equation?

There! I’ve said my piece. It’s funny how you think you have a strong case about something until you put it down on paper, see it laid out in black and white and realize – it’s air tight, baby! I’m not the next Golden Child …I’m the Golden Child right now.

So, hit the road, Roberts. There’s a new heroine in town – and if there’s only one thing I inspire women to do during my reign it’ll be something Julia never did – eat!

Thank you! Thank you, very much! Look for my autograph on eBay!