Julia Roberts has taken her friendship with Shameless star Emmy Rossum beyond Hollywood, spending time with her children and even knitting them personalised blankets.
Rossum, 40, shared the story during an appearance on The Jennifer Hudson Show on Thursday, October 22, describing how the 58-year-old Pretty Woman star has visited her home to play Lego with the children she shares with filmmaker Sam Esmail.
“He is very close with her, and she is such a kind person,” Rossum said of Esmail’s friendship with Roberts. “She is so down to earth. Doesn’t have an assistant.”
Roberts’ thoughtful gestures extend to her knitting needles. According to Rossum, each blanket comes with a personalised label reading “From the Knitting Needles of Auntie Juju” — a sweet detail that gives the Oscar winner a rather different role from the one audiences know on screen.
Esmail has previously spoken about his friendship with Roberts, telling PEOPLE in 2023 that getting to know the actress was initially surreal, given that he had grown up watching her films. Over time, he came to know her as a generous friend and mother.
“It’s hard to see her anything other than just this giving and generous mom and friend,” he said.
Esmail, best known for creating Mr. Robot, has worked with Roberts on several projects, including Homecoming, Gaslit and the 2023 Netflix thriller Leave the World Behind.
He and Rossum married in May 2017 after meeting through the 2014 romantic comedy Comet, which Esmail wrote and directed and Rossum starred in. They have two children, a daughter born in 2021 and a son born in 2023, and generally keep family life private.
Rossum has previously spoken about how motherhood has changed her outlook. Appearing on Today in November 2024, she described raising children as an opportunity to help shape the next generation.
“I love it, it’s incredible,” she said. “It’s such a journey … a responsibility of figuring out what kind of world do we want to leave for our children.”
For Roberts, the Lego sessions and personalised blankets offer a glimpse of a friendship built away from film sets, with the actress earning her place in the family as “Auntie Juju”.
Celebrity Hollywood Hot Chicks News
Last modified: October 23, 2026
