How Julia Roberts Overcame Self-Doubt to Build a Legendary Career

Julia Roberts' Early Career Struggles

For nearly four decades, Julia Roberts has sparkled onscreen. She won an Oscar for her turn as an environmental activist in Erin Brockovich, becoming such a beloved star that her After the Hunt costar Andrew Garfield calls her a “national treasure.”

Still, in a new PEOPLE interview, Roberts reveals she faced early struggles in her career.

Overcoming Lack of Confidence

"I don't think I entered into my career with much confidence,” says Roberts, 57, in a joint interview alongside Ayo Edebiri, who plays the student protégée to her professor in After the Hunt.

"I encountered early on, not a lot but a few critical people who were really cruel," she adds, "and it was a really interesting challenge for me to decide the kind of person I wanted to strive to be.”

Building Character Over Career

“So it was so much more about who I wanted to be as opposed to what kind of career I wanted to have," she says. "And then I wanted to take the person that I wanted to build and put that person into these different situations of work life.”

Roberts explains that it was "more bumps than smooth sailing" for her between ages 15 to 25.

Learning from Challenges

"Of course, even then, I would have shreds of gratitude. I would think, ‘Okay, there's a reason why it has to be so hard,' " she recalls. "Now I look at it as some of the lessons that I'm the most grateful for because they proved my endurance to myself."

Adds Roberts, "Being insecure, it can be crippling. So if someone embarrassed me, it stopped me. I was apoplectic, so learning to navigate that — because this is not an industry to be in if you can't take criticism or harshness or being embarrassed.”

Personal Evolution and Discovery

Reflecting on a career spanning multiple genres and directors, the mom of three says her choices were often about “personal evolution and discovery.”

Pausing, she sweetly looks at Edebiri, 30, and says with her signature laugh, “Did I bring the mood down?”

“No,” says Edebiri, “it's beautiful.”