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Julia Roberts Gushes Over Older Sister Lisa Gillan’s Big Heart: ‘I Think of Kindness’
She may be one of Hollywood’s most accomplished stars, but Julia Roberts would be nothing without her family. While recently reflecting on the beginning of her showbiz career, the Pretty Woman star gushed over her older sister Lisa Gillian‘s big heart and credited her with being extremely supportive.
“I have always believed kindness has many forms. Some quite obvious, some more subtle,” the 52-year-old beauty shared with People for the magazine’s first-ever Kindness Issue. “Some are an exact shape and some kindness, I have found, is more reaching, surrounding, like an embrace.”
Julia explained that growing up, she and Lisa, 54, shared a super close bond. “I think of my sister Lisa often when I think of kindness, but specifically something she did when we were both teenagers,” the brunette beauty, who is also the sibling of brother Eric Roberts, said. “Teenagers. Those historically edgy, self center creatures, blind to all needs but their own.”
The Eat Pray Love actress told the outlet that Julia was most appreciative of her sister when Lisa let her move into her NYC as a new roommate. “When I graduated from high school at 17, she had already moved to New York City and was enrolled in theater school,” she explained. “Surely, with lots on her plate and mind at 19 years old, but when I asked to move in with her just days after I graduated — mainly, because I missed her — she never blinked an eye or asked for the outline of time or ideas before saying yes.”
The Academy Award winner — who has since become one of Hollywood’s most notable actresses — couldn’t help but gush over her sister’s selfless act. “Her kindness was so reflexive and warm that I surely did not even recognize it as such at the time,” Julia expressed. “But the feeling of it, the sense of belonging it provided me with was and is one of the great motivators of my life and my hearts compass and compassion towards others.”
The Homecoming star adorably added that, although they’re much older now, their lives are still very much intertwined. “We shared apartments all over NYC for years and now we are grown and married and have separate apartments, but they are in the same building!” she marveled. “If my teenage self never said it clearly, ‘Thank you sister, for your endless kindness for me then and always.'”
We bet Lisa couldn’t be more grateful to have Julia as her little sister too!
