Julia Ormond arrived in style in 1995. Hollywood, realizing that the other Julia (Roberts) couldn’t star in everything, was seeking a new ingenue. And so Ormond, who had done theater and the miniseries Traffik in her native England, was cast in three big-budget films that made their mark that year: Legends of the Fall, First Knight and Sabrina. But the accompanying media blitz (including an infamous New York Times Magazine piece titled “The Conception, Production and Distribution of Julia Ormond”) put the actress under a magnifying glass, and she felt the burn. “It was overwhelming,” she says. “I was so fortunate to be given these huge breaks, but I was savvy enough to know it wasn’t all good.”
Now, at 44, she has learned how to “ride out the highs and lows” of her career. “I’m really happy with what’s being offered,” says Ormond, who was featured last year in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and stars this summer with Bill Pullman in the crime thriller Surveillance. As the single mother of a four-year-old daughter, she says, “I’m not in the position anymore of taking on huge leads that shoot in Prague for six months. The stuff that I have to say no to, I say no to.” Two things Ormond does carve out time for: her work for the United Nations and a nonprofit she founded called ASSET, the Alliance to Stop Slavery and End Trafficking. “I came to understand the issue while I was filming in Russia, and that started a journey of discovery that has taken me around the world,” she says. “I was naïve, and I woke up.”
Her continuing search for balance in life sometimes takes an unexpected turn. “I’m trying to streamline,” she says. “A Buddhist friend told me that if you’re feeling stressed, get rid of the stuff you don’t need and finish the things you’ve started.” She laughs. “So I finished the ice cream and the vodka in the freezer, and I’m feeling lots less stress.”
VIEW A SLIDESHOW OF JULIA ORMOND'S FASHION SHOOT.
