Julia Roberts

Pretty Woman was the moment. It grossed $460 million worldwide in 1990 and earned her a Golden Globe, turning her from a recognizable face into the name above the title. She'd had Steel Magnolias and Mystic Pizza first, but those were warmups. The bigger deal came a decade later: Erin Brockovich made her the first actress paid $20 million for a single film. Her agent made the case that she'd built five $100 million films while male peers had demanded the same rate after just one. The Oscar was almost beside the point.

Nearly four decades into her career, she's still commanding $20 million per picture while most of her nineties-era peers have drifted into supporting roles or TV. After the Hunt premiered at Venice in 2025 to a 37% on Rotten Tomatoes, which suggests the winning-streak argument has gotten complicated. Still, she has Panic Carefully with Elizabeth Olsen and Kill Your Darlings opposite Anne Hathaway and Adam Driver coming up. The deal-making hasn't stopped even if the acclaim isn't automatic anymore.

Coretta Scott King paid the hospital bill when Roberts was born, because her father ran the South's only racially integrated theater troupe and had personally coached the King children in drama. That family history rarely gets mentioned alongside Pretty Woman. She called off her engagement to Kiefer Sutherland three days before the scheduled wedding, then married Lyle Lovett three weeks after meeting him. She practices Hinduism, avoids social media, and mostly lives on a ranch in Taos. The "America's Sweetheart" label was always a bit of an imposition.