Julia Roberts is keeping things open and candid when it comes to her parenting style for her three children. The Oscar-winning actress shares twins Phinnaeus and Hazel, 20, and younger son Henry, 18, with her husband Daniel "Danny" Moder, and is giving them an education on prime cinema. And starting them young, too! Speaking with the New York Times alongside her After the Hunt director Luca Guadagnino about the power of film and conversation, she reflected on how movies can inspire candid discussions in people on a variety of topics, citing one example with her kids.
"I think people don't realize how much they miss talking," she noted of the conversations she'd had with people after watching After the Hunt, a controversial story on a college professor (played by Julia) confronting her own past when one of her students (Ayo Edebiri) claims she was abused by a fellow professor (Andrew Garfield).
© Columbia PicturesShe then recalls watching Stand By Me with her kids when they were younger, which starred Wil Wheaton, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell, the late River Phoenix, and one Kiefer Sutherland. It was just three years after the movie's 1986 release, however, that Julia met Kiefer when they starred together in Flatliners. A romance blossomed, resulting in an engagement the following year, and an ensuing media circus in 1991 when they called off their wedding just three days prior.
However, Julia's daughter Hazel found a completely different moral of the story. "For some reason, I was thinking this morning about when my kids were young and we showed them 'Stand by Me,' and our daughter said to me, 'I'm going to give you my phone.' And I said, 'OK. What do you want me to do with it?'"
"She said, 'You just keep it. I don't want it. Seeing that movie, I just thought if those boys had phones, they wouldn't be talking to each other like that. They wouldn't have gone looking for that body, they wouldn't sit around the fire and share these stories.' She could see how it was getting in the way of things. All that's to say, we love talking to each other and sometimes we forget how important it is."
© InstagramThe coming-of-age drama Stand By Me, directed by Rob Reiner and based on the Stephen King book The Body, centers around a group of four boys who spend their Labor Day weekend trying to find a body, fighting off competition from a group of local bullies (with Kiefer playing their head honcho Ace), and opening up about their respective traumas, experiences and aspirations.
© Columbia PicturesThe movie has since become a cult classic, considered one of the most sentimental films of its era and a landmark of its genre. It was a critical and commercial success at the time too, grossing over $50 million worldwide and earning two Golden Globe nods and an Oscar nomination. It gained an even greater following in the wake of River's tragic passing just seven years later at the age of 23.
© Getty ImagesAs for Julia and Kiefer, things soured quickly after the end of their relationship in 1991, as it was reported that on the same day she canceled their wedding, she flew off to Ireland on an impromptu getaway with Kiefer's The Lost Boys co-star Jason Patric. The pair became an item, although their relationship ended the following year.
