Julia plays it absolutely for real

Erin Brockovich, the movie and the woman, should be an inspiration for everybody - because if you extract one concept from this movie, it is that a person can make a difference even where the scale of the problem seems too big to confront. It is the idea of a waterfall starting with one drop.

This was my greatest experience filming. It was the ultimate - all these different characters, and Steven Soderbergh at the helm who, along with the writer, got together the story. Steven knows how to have a good time at work and still be productive. Which is the trick, right?

I used to have this haidresser, sweet gal. She told great stories but couldn't actually do my hair and tell the story at the same time. It was one or the other. She'd come around and look at me instead of doing my hair while looking at me in the mirror. It was one or the other. But with Steven, it's both. He shoots the film and really participates - he's an active presence.

One of my big concerns was, of course, playing a real person. A real living person as opposed to the real dead person I played in Michael Collins. There can be a wrong way to play a real person, as opposed to just making it up as you go along. The big fear is being wrong, and it's an even bigger fear than being bad. So there's a great sense of responsibility.

You have to know where to draw the line, though. You can't just say, "Well, I wouldn't walk into the kitchen now because she never would have." You can't be too extreme. I think we did Erin justice. She certainly seems to think so.