Julia Roberts looks chic while promoting her new thriller Leave the World Behind with director Sam Esmail… after he revealed why he cast America’s Sweetheart as a ‘Karen’
Julia Roberts and Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail, 46, appeared together on SiriusXM's The Jess Cagle Show, which is taped at the Mandarine Oriental Hotel in New York City.
They were promoting their new film Leave the World Behind, an apocalyptic thriller about class and race relations amid an inexplicable blackout caused by a cyberattack.
Roberts, 56, stars opposite Ethan Hawke, 53, and Mahershala Ali, 49, in the adaptation of Rumaan Alam's novel of the same name.
Roberts and Hawke play a married couple on vacation who encounter a father (Ali) and daughter who claim to be renting the same AirBnB and who may know more about the impending doom than they let on.
The Pretty Woman star wore a black T-shirt with Esmail's face on it, black leather leggings, a cropped black leather jacket and black pumps for the taping of the SiriusXM show.
Julia Roberts and Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail, 46, appeared together on SiriusXM's The Jess Cagle Show, taped at the Mandarine Oriental Hotel in New York City
Next, the Erin Brockovich actress was seen wearing the same leggings with a plaid coat and Gucci horsebit loafers
Next, the Erin Brockovich actress was seen wearing the same leggings with a plaid jacket and Gucci horsebit loafers.
Esmail, who is married to actress Emmy Rossum, 37, sat down for an interview with the Hollywood reporter last week to discuss the film about two families who are strangers until a cyberattack takes away power and technology, bringing about the end of the world as they know it.
He was also grilled about casting Roberts, who is largely assumed to be him America's Sweetheart as an extremely obnoxious 'Karen.'
“But it's for that reason,” he said. “Amanda is a very flawed character in the book, but I found her compelling, and I knew that if I was going to make it into a movie, the audience would have to find a way to access this person and it would be difficult.” , he told the outlet.
'You really need someone like Julia Roberts. Not only is she America's darling, but she's like the Michael Jordan of actors, and she was going to find a way to channel the humanity out of this person,” he continued.
He sent the book to Roberts, who has become a frequent collaborator and muse of his, appearing in his films Gaslit and Homecoming.
Esmail said, “She read it in a day and called me the next day and said, 'I'm in.'
And he'd wanted to make a disaster movie for a while, but didn't know what kind until he read the book during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
They were promoting their new film Leave the World Behind, an apocalyptic thriller about class and race relations amid an inexplicable blackout caused by a cyberattack.
Roberts, 56, stars opposite Ethan Hawke, 53, and Mahershala Ali, 49, in the adaptation of Rumaan Alam's novel of the same name
“When I expanded the disaster elements into the context of some sort of cyber attack, I think that exposed to the public the idea of what a cyber attack could look like,” he shared. Entertainment weekly.
'Because cyber attacks are generally a bit stupid and mysterious in themselves. I don't think people really understand what that means or what that would look like.
“And when you start to dramatize that on screen and they start to realize that that's a real connection to reality, I think that's where the real terror could strike.”
He hopes that this terror will give rise to reflection and conversations. 'For me this was a conversation starter. “It's about really getting inside your head and pulling out the fears that you might really have about our world, and being affected enough to talk to someone about it,” he explained.