Julia Roberts: Young Stars Should Be Allowed to Make Mistakes

By Dahvi Shira

02/28/2012 at 03:00 PM EST

Everyone makes mistakes – and young celebrities are no exception, says Julia Roberts.

The Mirror Mirror actress, 44, is bothered by the lack of what young stars are able to get away with in the public eye, compared to when she started in the business decades ago.

"There's the express elevator and there's rehab," she tells Vanity Fair. "It's so awful. Nobody gets a fair trial-and-error period that everybody deserves and everybody needs."

Adds Roberts, "The business is so different. You can never be that new girl [who] has that moment of, 'Where'd she come from?' "



Roberts – whose niece Emma, 21, is part of the young Hollywood community – has three little ones of her own with hubby Danny Moder, and they seem clueless to their mom's fame.

"[I was] on a crowded street, and somebody noticed me, and then another person noticed," Roberts says. "Somebody said as we were walking past, 'Oh, that's Julia Roberts.' We all just kind of kept going, and then [twin son Phinnaeus] said, 'Yeah, my mom's Julia Robinson.' That's what gives you perspective. It could be Robinson, it could be Johnson, because it has nothing to do with me as a person."