Roberts, 24, didn't exactly have to dig deep to play the title role in the new comedy Simone, about a computer-generated actress created by a director (Pacino) who's tired of whiny stars. But she had everything else director Andrew Niccol was looking for. "I was thinking maybe I'll find a face in the Ukraine and a body in Brazil and a voice in England," he says. "But I was lucky enough to find this unknown from Canada who had it all."
The studio wanted to maintain the illusion that Simone was all-digital until after the movie's release, so for almost two years the single Manhattanite told no one. She even kept the truth from her family. "I told my brother Frank I was taking a break from modeling," she says. "I think he thought I was having a nervous breakdown."
Unlikely. Roberts began modeling at 16 at the suggestion of her mother, Lila, a hairdresser who died of breast cancer at 42, less than a year later. The loss "gave me a lot of strength," says Roberts, whose father, Ian, is a dentist. Now out of seclusion, she's eager to get back to friends and her twin passions: surfing and traveling. One plus to all that downtime: "You can't really get a big head," she says, "about something you can't talk about."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
