Julia Roberts: 5 Awesome Performances & 5 That Sucked

4. Anna Scott - Notting Hill (1999)

If you were honest with yourself, Roberts' performance in Notting Hill is probably how you like to imagine the actor is in real life: troubled, wearing her crown uneasily, and just looking for someone to bumble their way into her heart. Ignoring the many, many issues with Notting Hill's logic - such as Grant's ability to afford his insanely high rent, on both his home and his business, despite running what amounts to the worst book shop in England - the film soars on the dynamic between the stereotype-gobbling English actor and his transatlantic co-star. It's a brilliant piece of romantic fantasy, with an irresistible It Could Happen To You magic behind it, and Roberts' honest performance is difficult not to love, even if the rest of the film is populated with the kind of rank caricatures that make Americans think everyone in Britain is a twee, tea drinking buffoon, or a nit-brained half-wit. The true testament to the performance's success is that not only does she manage to make one of the worst sequences in cinema - the God-awful "I deserve the last brownie" sparring match - seem acceptable, despite the obvious, but she also adds emotional authenticity to the "I'm just a girl..." speech to Hugh Grant's startled, stuttering Englishman without even a hint of irony. In other hands, both of those sequences would have been like being punched in the face repeatedly with candy floss, but her delivery, and her unwillingness to sell the terrible writing down the river mean that they are arguably the film's most memorable lines.