Cooler Than You Think: Here's What We Know about Julia Roberts

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7. Julia Roberts knows where her jewelry comes from. "This," she says, twirling an attractively clunky tank watch around her wrist, "is a prop watch from I Love Trouble. It works. These two rings," she says, trailing the fingers of her left hand over a pair of slender, understated bands on the fingers of her right, "were given to me by Elaine [Goldsmith]. Rubies for heart, diamonds for spirit. This," she continues briskly as her voice drops a businesslike octave, "is, quite obviously, my wedding ring."

There's a knock at the door. "Going-over-my-jewelry-be-out-in-a-minute," she responds.

Her fingertips move toward her throat, where they delicately braille a set of thready gold chains. "This," she says, feeling for one, "was a Christmas present from Susan Sarandon a couple of years ago. Wore it in Pelican Brief. Brought me great luck. This was a present from Elaine, another present from Elaine..." Her fingers touch her ears. "These earrings, hmmph." She stops, stumped. "I think I got them in the Village on some table. But I can't take 'em off because I wore them in Pret-a-Porter and I have to go do a reshoot. I'm afraid if I take 'em off I'll lose 'em."

8. Julia Roberts is not good with numbers. Briefly, almost good-naturedly, she complains about tabloid photographers. She refers to them in passing as "the guys who just go 'Ka-ching! There's another 35 cents!'" (She also calls them "those bastards who follow me around," but her tone suggests more resignation than rage.) In her estimation of her own worth, however, she's a little off. In fact, a good paparazzo shot of Roberts, say, leaving a restaurant, can fetch a standard rate of $150 to $500, and "more if you got her with a new date or something," says photographers' representative Scott Downie of Celebrity Photo.

Another number Roberts dodges is $10 million — her reported per-movie fee, a salary that establishes a new high for actresses. "That," she says with uncharacteristic mumbliness, "is their thing." They, she elaborates slightly, are her "businesspeople." She accompanies this with a hand gesture to suggest the pushing-away of a large obstruction. She seems, for a moment, touchingly embarrassed.

9. Julia Roberts hates the phone. "I like to write letters," she says. "I like the idea of sitting down with a blank piece of paper and painting out my day for someone, you know? Not 'Here's what I think, very sincerely yours.' I like them to be more fluid and nice.

"Instant gratification is the positive side of phones, but the negative side is, you can't see somebody's face. Thoughts and feelings don't have to be fully expressed because you have the crutch of the tone of your voice. And you can interrupt one another. And I think it sucks."

10. Julia Roberts calls back. "Life is a great adventure," says Roberts, who records her great adventure, "when I have the time and wherewithal," in a journal. "But I think that people" — meaning journalists — "sometimes fixate on a sort of smaller, narrower view of things. It" — meaning life — "is just so huge and massive, and sometimes I get the impression that people are in this, like, big hurry to shove it all in a box and make it tiny. That's a horrible thing to do with this big, gigantic, fabulous thing! But for me to become guarded or reserved would squelch the natural instincts of a young woman. And I don't want to be a party to that. So I say" — here she whispers — "raise hell, ride on, you don't have me yet!" And she laughs heartily.

Roberts is thinking about her past interviews, those she feels allowed "the words that came out of my mouth to sound like me." But, she is reminded, she doesn't always make it easy on her profilers. In fact, just one day after a writer for another magazine concluded what he thought was a thorough interview, he learned that Roberts had benignly opted to omit one salient detail from their conversation: She was marrying Lyle Lovett the next day.

"Ah. Ha. Yeah," she says, laughing a little sheepishly.

"So, are you doing anything important tomorrow?"

"I think I'm working," she says. "But if I jump off a building or anything, I'll call."

She calls the next afternoon. "I have nothing to report," she says. "I just had your basic, general...day. I wish I could say, 'This just in!' But no."

"Sometimes no news is good news."

"In my life?" she says, with a big hoot. "You're not kidding."