Julia Roberts gears up for awards with performance in “August: Osage County”

Twentyfour years after starring in “Pretty Woman,” Julia Roberts remains Hollywood’s favorite smile and is again being mentioned for the upcoming awards season for one of the most dramatic roles of her career in “August: Osage County,” based on the prizewinning play by Tracy Letts about the demons in a family ruled by Meryl Streep.

“Poor Barbara, when the movie begins she is in terrible straits with all those around her: her husband, her daughter, her mother...Sometimes you must get to the point of asking what it is these people want and what you want for yourself,” Roberts said in an interview with Efe.

The daughter of Meryl Streep, mother of Abigail Breslin, wife of Ewan McGregor and sister of Juliette Lewis and Julianne Nicholson, Roberts faces, not without moral problems but with undeniable artistic talent, the lovehate feelings in her blood.

“I definitely had a lot of work to do but it’s fun to deal with a challenge like that. I had to be absolutely focused on what was going on. To know which secrets my character knew at any given time and which she didn’t. Tracy (Letts) created a world for us that was very hard to live in,” Roberts said.

Her character was created for a play that won the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, which, when taken to the big screen, was directed by John Wells and seems designed to get Roberts in the running for an Oscar once again after 12 years without a nomination.

“It’s always a happy, exciting experience, but it’s not the motivation,” the actress said about having another shot at the golden statuette.

Roberts won an Oscar for “Erin Brockovich” in 2001 and was nominated in 1989 for “Steel Magnolias” and in 1990 for “Pretty Woman.”