Julia's second act 'THIS TIME I'M FEARLESS'

With her kids now grown and flown, the legendary star has embarked on an exciting adventure

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It’s been 38 years since she arrived in Hollywood as a wide-eyed ingenue and Julia Roberts is the first to admit much has changed for women in that time.

But despite the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements that rocked the entertainment industry to the core, the Pretty Woman star laughs at the suggestion that all the battles have been won.

The difference between 20-year-old Julia - whose first role was as a character called Babs in a movie that went straight to video - and 58-yearold Julia is that these days, she doesn't bat an eyelid. "In those environments, I am without fear," says the Oscar winner.

This year has been a significant one for Julia. After two decades of prioritising the raising of her kids, twins Hazel and Phinnaeus, 20, and younger son Henry, 18, she and her cameraman husband Danny Moder, 57, are officially empty nesters.

For Julia, that means she suddenly feels able to spread her acting wings as far and wide as she likes.

So when a role in the psychological thriller After the Hunt came along, she happily gave in to the temptation to say yes.

In the film, Julia plays Alma, a philosophy professor caught in a bind when a male colleague and friend is accused of sexual assault by a star pupil.

The Notting Hill actor has played educators before, of course – from an inspiring 1950s art history teacher in Mona Lisa Smile to a disillusioned community college English teacher with a taste for alcohol in Larry Crowne.

This role, however, was new territory for Julia. In After the Hunt, her character butts heads with one student and not only publicly chastens another but seems to revel in it.