Emma Roberts Says “Fame Has Never Been the Goal” After Watching Her Aunt Julia Roberts’ Superstardom Sometimes Turn “Really Scary”

No doubt about it, actress Emma Roberts is famous—but few reach the level of superstardom that she watched her aunt, Julia Roberts, experience as Emma was growing up. 

Emma was born in 1991, the year after Julia’s star-making turn in 1990’s Pretty Woman, which catapulted her to new levels of fame. In an interview on Bruce Bozzi’s “Table for Two” podcast (and per Us Weekly), Emma said that her aunt’s global fame was “really scary” at times after Bozzi asked her whether becoming a “massive movie star” was ever her goal as an actress.  

“I saw very up close what that really looks like with my Aunt Julia,” Emma said. “It’s fun and it’s great, but there is a part of it that’s really scary.”

Emma added that being a carbon copy of Julia was never her desire, as she “always wanted to kind of carve my own path,” she said, adding that, through Julia’s superstardom, she learned even as a little girl that fame isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be. “Fame has never been the goal, because fame at a certain level is kind of scary,” Emma said.

Of her fame, Julia told CBS Sunday Morning in October 2022 that “Acting is my dream come true, but it is not my only dream come true,” she said. “The life that I’ve built with my husband [Danny Moder and] the life that we’ve built with our children [Hazel, Phinnaeus, and Henry]—that’s the best stuff, to come home at the end of the day, triumphantly, to them.”

Emma is looking to carve a similar path, and has been since beginning her career in the early 2000s. “Even in my later teens, I was like, ‘I never want my fame to outweigh my work,’” she told Bozzi. “Because there’s nothing scarier to me than being so famous that you’re never left alone, but also, you’re not getting good jobs.”

Emma also spoke out on “Table for Two” about nepotism, specifically calling out that men experience criticism for it less than women. “I think there’s two sides of the coin,” she said. “People like to say, you know, you have a leg up because you have family in the industry. But then, the other side to that is you have to prove yourself more. Also, if people don’t have good experiences with other people in your family, then you’ll never get a chance.” (Well, thankfully, Julia is well-regarded in Hollywood, and has long been considered one of America’s foremost sweethearts.)

Whether male or female, Emma told Bozzi she doesn’t think “anyone should be called out for wanting to follow their dream,” she said.