Ah, Julia Roberts... the queen bee of all silver-screen sweethearts. For 20 years, she's been the biggest female box-office draw and the gold standard by which all rising starlets are compared. With her breakout role as the luminous lady of the evening in Pretty Woman (1990), she captured the attention of critics and moviegoers alike. "She was young, but just fearless, and she was obviously popping off the screen," recalled director Garry Marshall. She won an Oscar for best actress in Erin Brockovich in 2000 and helped revive Hollywood's waning romantic comedy genre with My Best Friend's Wedding (1997) and Notting Hill (1999). Today she is a wife and a mother of three, and though at 42 she is approaching the age when major roles for actresses tend to disappear, she shows no signs of slowing down, with the highly anticipated Eat, Pray, Love scheduled for release on August 13.
Gabriel Bouys, AFP / Getty Images
Since her breakthrough role as the unwitting heroine in Speed (1994), Sandra Bullock has established herself as an actress with a penchant for spirited performances as ordinary women in exceptional circumstances. "Never in a million years did I think a bus movie would open every door I ever possibly wanted open," she later remarked on the success of Speed. After several critical and commercial disappointments, Bullock rebounded with modest successes like Hope Floats and Practical Magic in 1998, followed by the light-hearted smash hit Miss Congeniality in 2000. Like Roberts, Bullock has had remarkable staying power, with 2009 proving to be one of her most successful years. In addition to producing and playing lead in the hit romantic comedy The Proposal, she earned the Best Actress Oscar for her role in The Blind Side.
Gabriel Bouys, AFP / Getty Images
Perhaps no other actress has sparked today's influx of small-town beauties to Hollywood more than Nashville native Reese Witherspoon. Her early standout performances include her role as a sultry cheerleader in Pleasantville (1998) and ambitious tough cookie in Election (1999). But it was as Elle Woods in Legally Blonde (2000) that she established herself as "one of the most impressively talented members of the emerging New Hollywood of the 21st century," according to All Movie Guide. Following her success in 2000, Witherspoon starred in the romantic comedy Sweet Home Alabama (2002), which proved popular among audiences despite unfavorable reviews. Successfully making the leap from romantic comedy to drama as June Carter Cash in the acclaimed biopic Walk the Line (2005), Witherspoon earned both a Best Actress Oscar and a Golden Globe, confirming that there is more to this sweetheart than her Southern charm and pretty face.
Vera Anderson, WireImage / Getty Images
Since her role as the winsome Rachel Green in the impossibly popular sitcom Friends, Jennifer Aniston has had no trouble maintaining sweetheart status. It was no surprise, then, that she began dating consummate Hollywood stud-muffin Brad Pitt, together becoming the world's celebrity power couple until their legal split in 2005. As Angelina Jolie and Pitt formed the intimidating entity "Brangelina," Aniston starred alongside funnyman Vince Vaughn in The Break-Up, and the two sparked a relationship, helping to put Aniston's divorce in the past while also bolstering the success of the film. Later, Aniston starred with Owen Wilson in Marley & Me (2008), which grossed more than $200 million worldwide, cementing her box-office drawing power and reign as a Hollywood sweetheart.
Joel Ryan / AP Photo
From the tender age of 7, Drew Barrymore had no trouble scaling the ranks of Hollywood stardom, capturing the attention of audiences in her role as the lovably mischievous kid-sister in E.T. (1982). But her cherubic image quickly underwent a marked change: Barrymore began drinking at 9 and abusing drugs shortly thereafter. In the early '90s, she took a series of roles as oversexed nymphets—a persona she seemed to maintain off-screen as well, posing nude in a number of magazines, including Playboy, and flashing David Letterman as a "birthday present" during an appearance on The Late Show. But in the latter part of the decade, she went from slattern to sweetheart—convincingly playing Cinderella in Ever After (1998) and a nerdy misfit in Never Been Kissed (1999), and putting a lid on her wild-child reputation. Also in 1998, she won audiences over with her role in the hit comedy The Wedding Singer, which further underscored her reputation as America's burgeoning sweetheart. Films like Charlie's Angels (2000), Riding in Cars with Boys (2001), and 50 First Dates (2004) followed, cementing her status not only as a capable leading lady but also a skilled and proficient actor.
Jason LaVeris, FilmMagic / Getty Images
Cameron Diaz has taken on a wide variety of roles over her career, turning heads as one of Charlie's Angels and voicing the love interest of an ogre in Shrek. But perhaps none of her roles has fit better than her star turns as sweethearts in films such as My Best Friend's Wedding and There's Something About Mary. Diaz has, at times, been the most lucrative actress in the industry, raking in as much as $50 million in a 12-month period over 2007 and 2008. Diaz today seems comfortable with her diminished role as a siren and sweetheart, as the 37-year-old has been quoted as saying, "I feel more self-possessed, which I think allows you to be more sexy, more confident… It's also natural that as I get older I play mothers and wives and be part of different kinds of films…The thing to envy in young people is not how they look, but their innocence." With one movie ( Knight and Day, with Tom Cruise) due out later in June and six others in development or post-production, Diaz has every reason to enjoy herself.
Evan Agostini / AP Photo
Although she got her big break playing a groupie in Almost Famous (2000), Hudson went on to play the love interest of far nicer men than the classic rocker she loved in Cameron Crowe's classic. Starring alongside leading men Matthew McConaughey, Matt Dillon, and Owen Wilson in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Fool's Gold, and You, Me, and Dupree has solidified Hudson's place as a charming and entirely lovable actress. Her performance in Nine added "singer" and "dancer" to her acting résumé, talents we're sure to see more directors make use of in the coming years. Her newest film, The Killer Inside Me, was lauded by some critics at Sundance as a tense thriller, but derided by others for its intense depiction of violence. It hits theaters in June. Hudson knows she can't remain a sweetheart forever in ageist Hollywood, but she need look no further than her own family for an example of an actress who stayed relevant far past her rom-com prime. Her mother, Goldie Hawn, enjoyed a three-decade-long film career, and there doesn't appear to be any reason Hudson can't follow in Hawn's career footsteps.
Jemal Countess / Getty Images
Tim Burton's White Queen in Alice in Wonderland seems to be perennially making it big. Anne Hathaway entered the popular consciousness as a part of Get Real, a television series that proved short-lived. She then had her "bigger" break as the unknowing heir to the throne in The Princess Diaries (2001), and again seemed to appear on the scene in Ella Enchanted (2004). A talented and classically trained soprano, the actress was to star in 2004's The Phantom of the Opera, but Princess Diaries 2 scheduling conflicts prevented her from taking the role. Her expensive price tag reportedly proved too high for the Spider-Man series, and she was rewritten out of the fourth installment. Hathaway executed her latest blockbuster role with a delightfully calculated awkwardness as part of Valentine's Day's mega-ensemble and is set to star opposite Johnny Depp in the upcoming romantic comedy The Fiancé.
Evan Agostini / AP Photo
You know you've arrived when you've inspired your very own line of scrubs. Katherine Heigl, the model and actress made famous by her role on Grey's Anatomy, despite having appeared in numerous television and film spots before signing onto the medical drama in 2005 (including Roswell, starting in 1999). Judd Apatow catapulted Heigl to semi-romantic comedy greatness in 2007's Knocked Up, and she has since cashed in on that success with star turns in 27 Dresses with James Marsden and Malin Akerman, and The Ugly Truth with Gerard Butler. With a handful of movies in development, the Heigl-Ashton Kutcher project Killers out June 4, and Life as We Know It, co-starring Christina Hendricks and Josh Duhamel, out in October, it's clear we are living in the age of Katherine Heigl. What's unclear, as is always the case in Hollywood, is how long her moment will last.
Steve Granitz / Getty Images
Perhaps no one walks the line between raw sex appeal and comforting charm as deftly as Amanda Seyfried. She once told the British tabloid newspaper Daily Mail that "I was naturally skinny and had braces, so I wasn't a cute model. I never felt pretty but it was fun and I got a cool paycheck to buy sweets with." As the troubled eldest child of polygamist Bill Henrickson (Bill Paxton) and his first wife, Barbara (Jeanne Tripplehorn) on HBO's Big Love, Seyfried has demonstrated a wide range of dramatic talents. She has certainly grown up from her days playing a "plastic" in Tina Fey's Mean Girls (2004), moving on to star as the prostitute who complicates Julianne Moore and Liam Neeson's marriage in Chloe. Her performances in Mamma Mia!, Dear John, and Letters to Juliet have secured her status as an able actress comfortable in romantic and dramatic roles. Upcoming projects include Albert Nobbs, the tale of a woman who spent years dressed as a man to make a living, and Red Riding Hood, for which Seyfried is rumored to have nabbed the lead role. She is also set to star in a 2011 adaptation of Oscar Wilde's A Woman of No Importance, though at this point it appears as though Amanda Seyfried is, in fact, America's next sweetheart.
Vera Anderson, WireImage / Getty Images
