Contrary to popular belief, Julia Roberts doesn't have it all figured out.
Yes, she's an Oscar winner. And it's true that Roberts earns millions of dollars as a Lancôme ambassador. But at her core, America's Sweetheart is a married mother of three whose family comes first. And while her life might look picture perfect, like most parents, she doesn't know the answer to the question, "How do you do it all?" As she tells InStyle's September 2014 issue, "I'm not nearly as busy as people think, half of everything just doesn't get done—as long as no one is in tears, nobody smells bad and everyone's sleeping peacefully, I've done my job—and I have a supportive group of girlfriends, a great husband and an understanding family. The rest gets done with grit, spit and a whole lot of duct tape."
Roberts, who has three kids with husband Danny Moder, has her bad days, of course. "It's like between grocery shopping, the cooking and cleaning up everything—it's a lot," she admits. "But it's not anything that millions of other moms don't do all the time, so there's nothing so great about me doing it."
Luckily, she and Moder are on the same page when it comes to parenting. "There are only two reasons why people fight: to be right or to create peace and harmony," Roberts argues. "If you know which your reason is, that really illuminates why you're having that conversation. Everything that comes out of your mouth should be properly focused on the point at issue and not on what you think the point should be."
Even before she had children, Roberts was a realist.
In the early '90s, when she was shooting the star-making Pretty Woman, Roberts had to turn down the lead role in Sleepless in Seattle."[Meg Ryan] and Tom Hanks are just such a jewel of a fit in that. I guess what they did for that moment in time is sort of what [Richard Gere] and I were doing across town, you know? I always feel like there is room for everybody," the 46-year-old star tells InStyle. "I don't consider myself really all that ambitious. When I didn't get a part—even when I was younger and needing to pay my rent—I would think, 'Oh, someone else got it. She's going to be so good.' I never felt sour grapes."