Inside Julia Roberts' Private Family World With Danny Moder, 3 Kids

Julia Roberts and Danny Moder’s 3 Kids Are All Grown Up in Rare Photo

Julia Roberts put acting on the back burner the minute she became a mom more than 21 years ago.

But since she and husband Danny Moder welcomed twins Hazel and Phinnaeus on Nov. 28, 2004, there's been no point at which her children were not the center of her universe. (And that really started ahead of their birth, when a chance to play "pregnant Julia Roberts" was written into 2004's Ocean's Twelve.)

"By the time we had kids, I had accomplished things and felt secure about that part of my life," the Oscar winner told the Wall Street Journal in 2014. "I was so joyful moving into the family phase of my life in a sincere way."

In fact, "for a long time," she continued, the kids "weren't even aware that I had a job because I was home so much."

But, as Roberts told Gwyneth Paltrow on The Goop Podcast in October 2018, she simply felt that after nearly two decades of churning out movies she "had earned that time to do whatever I want to do with it, with these new people in our house."

"I don't think they will ever have a true sense of that," Roberts acknowledged to Oprah Winfrey in a sit-down with the media mogul for Harper's Bazaar in 2018. "I think I told you once when they were starting to figure it out, it was like, 'You're famous?' And I said, 'I think a lot of people might have seen the movie that I'm in or might know who I am."'

Roberts recalled that the kids chewed on that for about an hour, before asking her, "Are you more famous than Taylor Swift?"

Kids really do say the darndest things. So we're guessing their minds were pretty blown when their mother took them to Swift's 1989 Tour in 2015 and was invited to share the stage with the headliner.

"She was very sweet with my children who had never been to a show before, they are all big fans," Roberts told Extra afterward. "And she said, 'Would you mind coming on stage during the song and dancing?' and I said to my children, 'Well, what do you think?' And they all said, 'Oh, Mom you have to do it!' and my youngest son said, 'Only do it if you want to, Mommy.' It was so sweet!"

Incidentally, the 58-year-old scored a VIP perch next to Travis Kelce when the Eras Tour touched down in Dublin.

Unlike their neighbors, though (or, maybe just like them, Malibu being a celebrity-friendly enclave), they have a few other spots to hang their hats as well, including the 30-acre ranch near Taos, N.M, where Roberts and Moder tied the knot on July 4, 2002, and where the actress historically loved spending as much time as possible.

But Malibu is where the majority of the family magic has taken place while the kids—who are now all in college—went to school in the L.A. area.

"There are some days when as soon as you've finished cooking breakfast and cleaning up the kitchen it's time to start lunch and by the time you've done that you're doing dinner and thinking there has to be a menu we can order from," Roberts told the U.K.'s Telegraph in 2009. "But then there are some days when it's just so creative and so much fun and my kids will help me and, as with anybody who's a mom or a wife, it just become a part of your day. Some days it's super-fun and some days it's a chore."

"The thing is," she told InStyle, "we have these three human beings who are just a complete reflection of the affection we have for each other."

She met Moder on the set of the 2001 action caper The Mexican and they've been close to inseparable ever since.

She called meeting Moder a "seismic shift" in her life, saying on The Good Podcast, "It's some kind of alchemy. He truly to this day, to this minute, is just my favorite human...We're so lucky in that way, we just really, really like each other."

Roberts wore her feelings all over at the Sept. 7, 2022, premiere of Ticket to Paradise in the form of a black Alexander McQueen dress customized with hearts surrounding her children's initials, "JR + DM," the momentous years "2002," "2004" and "2007," and the words "Hope," "Darling" and "Love" embroidered in crystals.

Reflecting on the ride that's been parenthood, she said on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2017, "You get through it and you figure it out. Everybody does, and it's a trial and error and a whole lot of tears. And it's amazing. I have three incredible kids, and to think about when they were teeny tiny. It goes so fast."

Full speed ahead for more scenes from Julia Roberts' blissful family world: