HOLLYWOOD -- Julia Roberts is beaming and she insists her smile is the genuine thing.

In the holiday movie Mona Lisa Smile, Roberts plays Katherine Watson, an art teacher at an exclusive women's college in 1953.

Katherine teaches her students to look beyond the paint and brush strokes to the very soul of the paintings. She explains this will allow them to ponder whether the smile on the Mona Lisa may be hiding the woman's sadness.

Not so in Roberts' case.

"I have a very blessed life. I am humbled by how things have worked out for me," says Roberts, 36.

She is one of the most powerful women in Hollywood commanding upwards of $20 million a picture, but it's not just her career that has her beaming these days.

"I am in a very profound and positive relationship (with cameraman Danny Moder). I could pontificate all day on the fabulousness of the good fortune of my marriage. There is a real ease to my life these days because I have found someone who brings out the best in me."

British actor Dominic West, who plays Roberts' love interest in Mona Lisa Smile, says what surprised him most about working with her was "how much of her focus is on her home life.

"In the context of our film that is pure irony. Katherine Watson is focused on her career to the detriment of her love life, but not Julia.

"She is a real home body," insists West.

"I expected her to be talking shop all the time, but you were more likely to hear her discussing how she prepares a turkey dinner for 15 people."

Like Dead Poets Society, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Mr. Holland's Opus, Mona Lisa Smile is the story of a teacher who has a profound influence on her pupils.

"I think sometimes even an absence of good teachers can be valuable. Being ignored can be just as important as being lauded," says Roberts, reflecting on her school days in Smyrna, Ga.

"No teacher took as much interest in me as Katherine does in her pupils. No one enveloped me with their self-confidence and suggested I find some of my own."

Roberts insists she's not bitter, though she does add: 'No one ever took me aside to tell me I had a really bright future."

Mona Lisa Smile is set in 1953 when women were expected to devote their lives to their husband, children and home. A career was for a woman who could not have such an ideal life.

Roberts' teacher tries to show her pupils they have a choice.

"No one tells young women today how lucky they are so have so many choices. They're so liberated and they take it all for granted. That's why I wanted to do this movie to give them a glimpse of a time when women didn't have the pure joy of having choices," says Roberts, who knows the joy and rewards of choice.

Before Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas became a major producer at Revolution Studios, she was Roberts' agent for 15 years.

"I met Julia just before she did Mystic Pizza. She had such honesty, integrity and grace, and she has lost none of that.

"We have 30 projects in various stages of development. Julia will have first look at every one that is female oriented.

"That's what happened with Mona Lisa Smile. We worked on the script for a year before we showed it to Julia."

At that point, Roberts agreed to coproduce Mona Lisa Smile.

Goldsmith-Thomas says what appealed to Roberts about Mona Lisa Smile was that "she would get to play a flawed character.

"Katherine is a teacher who learns to practise what she preaches."

Roberts did a bit of practising before Mona Lisa Smile started.

The producers held a charm school to teach the actresses playing the students how to walk, talk, sit and dress like young women of the 1950s.

Director Mike Newell was shocked when Roberts turned up.

"She's a major star and she was producing the film, and yet there she was walking around with a book on her head with the rest of the girls.

"What that said to me was she did not intend to treat the movie as a star vehicle for herself, but that she saw it as an ensemble piece and that's the way she worked every day on the set."

Roberts insists she does not see herself as a mentor.

"The only advice I gave to the young actresses ... was to make sure they enjoy what they're doing. My love for acting is what got me through the rough periods in my life and career."

Roberts will join George Clooney, Matt Damon and Brad Pitt for Ocean's Twelve and has agreed to star opposite Jude Law, Clive Owens and Natalie Portman in Closer.


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