Julia Roberts ‘Speechless’ After Learning She Inspired Meghan Markle To Become An Actress

Julia Roberts was left “speechless” after learning she inspired Duchess Meghan Markle to become an actress. Roberts learned of the news in an interview with People Magazine.

Markle shared this enlightening tidbit of information in a Glamour Magazine profile in August of 2017, shortly before her high-profile relationship with Prince Harry came to the public consciousness.

Titled 10 Women Who Changed My Life, the piece explained that Markle credited Roberts for her desire to take on the challenges of the acting field.

“It’s a great night for me!” Roberts exclaimed upon learning the news.

“But I am just going to be floating on that all night!”

Roberts was included in the list among such notables as Madeline Albright, novelist Toni Morrison, Joni Mitchell and Markle’s mother Doria Ragland.

The former Suits star and now the Duchess of Sussex singled out Roberts for inspiring the best compliment she had ever received.

“She was the first person I saw onscreen and thought, ‘That looks like so much fun; I wanna do that,'” said Markle of Roberts.

“When I was younger, someone once told me, ‘You kind of look like Julia Roberts in profile.’ It was the best compliment of all time.”

People reported that at the time of dropping the big royal news to Roberts, she was promoting the drama Ben Is Back, starring Oscar nominee Lucas Hedges. The movie is directed by Hedges’ Oscar-nominee dad Peter Hedges.

The movie follows the character of Ben as he comes back home from rehab for the holidays.

Roberts revealed to Entertainment Weekly that in order for she and Hedges to become more comfortable playing a mother and son, Roberts explained she invited Lucas and Peter Hedges, as well as movie daughter Kathryn Newton, to her house several times before shooting the emotionally tense flick.

“We just spent a few days where they would all come over and I would say to Lucas and Kathryn, ‘Okay, the kids are gonna take you guys surfing, so you’re gonna go down to the beach and Peter and I are gonna be here talking about stuff and making lunch.’ And off they’d go,” Roberts told EW.

The “kids” she was referring to are her three kids with husband Danny Moder — Hazel and Finn, 13, and Henry, 11.

The group grew so close that Lucas spent Thanksgiving with Roberts’ family revealed EW. “She obviously has been a cultural touchstone for such a long time, but her family is really grounded,” said Lucas Hedges to EW. “It really was a family Thanksgiving dinner.”

Ben Is Back debuts in theaters November 7.