Julia Roberts Says That We Didn't Fully Appreciate the Rom-Com Boom of the 1990's

America’s sweetheart Julia Roberts is returning to her rightful place in the romantic comedy genre with her upcoming film Ticket to Paradise, in which she will star opposite George Clooney. Twenty years ago, she was known as the rom-com queen after starring in movies like Pretty Woman, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Notting Hill, Runaway Bride, and America’s Sweethearts. But it’s been that long since she’s taken on a romantic comedy role, and she says it’s simply because there weren’t any movies in the genre worth her time.

In a recent interview with Variety, chatting about her upcoming film, Roberts talked about how the rom-com is an under-rated genre, and how in its hay day, we didn’t appreciate the great movies we were getting:

“I think we didn’t appreciate the bumper crop of romantic comedies that we had then. You don’t see all the effort and puppet strings because it’s fun and sweet and people are laughing and kissing and being mischievous. This is a genre that I love to participate in and watch, and I think they are hard to get right. There is a really simple math to it, but how do you make it special? How do you keep people interested when you can kind of predict what is coming?”

She then talked about why she has been away from these types of stories over the years, explaining:

“People sometimes misconstrue the amount of time that’s gone by that I haven’t done a romantic comedy as my not wanting to do one. If I had read something that I thought was that ‘Notting Hill’ level of writing or ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ level of madcap fun, I would do it. They didn’t exist until this movie [‘Ticket to Paradise’].”

When asked by if she stayed away from romantic comedies for 20 years because “there wasn’t a single good script, not one,” Roberts answered, “Yeah.”

So it sounds like this is going to be a really fun throwback to the types of movies actors like Roberts, Hugh Grant, Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, and Drew Barrymore used to make. I can’t wait! Ticket to Paradise hits theatres on October 21st.