"Being in Australia was really challenging because of all the Covid regulations, and I think it’s a real testament to friendship and to the creative environment we were in..."
Julia Roberts and George Clooney were trapped in a pandemic bubble while filming for their upcoming film Ticket to Paradise. In a recent interview with New York Times, Roberts spoke out about how the Clooneys "saved" her while filming. In the interview, Roberts and Clooney talked about their experience of working together again after appearing in cult classics such as Ocean's Eleven and Money Monster. During the shooting of Ticket to Paradise in Australia, Roberts lived alone in a house, while Clooney, his wife Amal, and their children resided at a nearby rental.
The film, directed by Ol Parker, stars Roberts and Clooney in the narrative of a divorced couple who band together and travel to Bali to save their daughter from repeating the mistake they thought they made 25 years earlier. Billie Lourd, Kaitlyn Dever, and Lily Lucas Bravo are also part of the movie's cast. In early 2022, as COVID cases increased in Australia, the production of Ticket to Paradise was delayed, according to Deadline.
Julia Roberts: How George Clooney 'saved me from complete loneliness' https://t.co/jlFNvyfeTN pic.twitter.com/URsdWMBQYo
— New York Post (@nypost) September 6, 2022
“We started in Hamilton Island, with all these wild birds, and Julia had the house down just below Amal and me and the kids,” Clooney explained. “I would come out in the early mornings and be like, ‘Caa-caa,’ and Julia would come out and be like, ‘Caa-caa.’ And then we’d bring her down a cup of coffee. She was Aunt Juju to my kids.”
Roberts commended Clooney and his family - Amal Clooney and the kids - for keeping her company. She would have struggled if she hadn't had a co-star she got along with. The Clooneys, according to Roberts, saved her from "total loneliness and despair." During the pandemic, the actors were largely isolated due to the lockdowns. It was the "longest I’ve ever been away from my family" for Roberts. "I don't think I've spent that much time alone since I was 25," she said. "Being in Australia was really challenging because of all the Covid regulations, and I think it’s a real testament to friendship and to the creative environment we were in that it wasn’t even harder because I’m not built to be one person anymore. It’s just not in my cellular data."
"When we first got to Australia and we were all quarantining, you kind of go a little bit cuckoo. I remember right around Day 11, I was like, 'Who am I? Where am I? What is this room that I never leave?' It’s a funny thing. I hadn’t really anticipated all that," the Pretty Woman star said. "That's why they invented alcohol," Clooney quipped, to which Roberts added, "Or chocolate chip cookies."
References:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/05/movies/george-clooney-julia-roberts-ticket-to-paradise.html
Cover Image Source: Getty Images | John Phillips
