'I try to perform bedtime stories, but my kids always say, "Just do your mommy voice"': Julia Roberts and five other Oscar hopefuls share their life stories

Actresses always let their hair down when they talk to The Hollywood Reporter's annual The Actresses issue, and this year is no different.
Oscar hopefuls Julia Roberts, Oprah Winfrey, Emma Thompson, Amy Adams, Octavia Spencer and Lupita Nyong'o all opened up not just about their critically acclaimed new roles, but also about their own personal struggles.
'I try to perform bedtime stories, but my kids always say, "Just do your mommy voice,"' 46-year-old Roberts - who is getting raves for her turn opposite Meryl Streep in August: Osage County - shared.

Oscar hopefuls: (clockwise from left) Emma Thompson, Oprah Winfrey, Octavia Spencer, Amy Adams, Julia Roberts and Lupita Nyong'o grace The Hollywood Reporter's annual The Actresses issue

Oprah, aged 59, who made a splash in this summer's The Butler, opened up about how she felt humiliated on the set of 1985's The Color Purple.

'I didn't know anything about acting,' she said.
'I'd never even been to Universal Studios. So I walked in - first scene, first day, Steven Spielberg - and I looked directly in the camera because that's what you do on television. I walked in and went, "How you doing, Miss Celie?" And he went, "Cut! Cut! Cut! What is wrong with you?" And I'm standing there, trembling. "Where are you looking?"
'I go, "I'm looking at the camera." He goes, "Miss Celie's over there!" [I was] terrified.'

Mommy: Julia shared a story about how her children don't want her to perform her way through their bedtime tales

Amy Adams, aged 39, who's impressive in American Hustle, said her worst experience on a film was with Julia on Charlie Wilson's War.
'That was scary,' she offered before the Pretty Woman jumped in with her own description.
'[Amy and I] were filming in Morocco, and they had built this refugee camp at the top of the Atlas Mountains, and this storm came and blew the camp away and destroyed the roads,' she stated.
'I had two very small children to get back to in Marrakech. It was bananas,' she added.

A rough start: Oprah confessed that she was humiliated on her first day of 1985's The Color Purple

Lupita Nyong'o, 30, who co-stars with Brad Pitt in 12 Years A Slave, started as a production assistant on The Constant Gardener.
'I was in charge of making sure that Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz got to where they needed to be,' she started.
'That was the first film that I worked on, and I would escort Ralph from his tent because in Kenya we don't have trailers, and he was always in some sort of funk, in a zone, and I would be like, "So, what was your favorite movie to work on?" You know, just trying small talk because the silence was uncomfortable for me.
'And he would be trying to be polite, but he really didn't want to speak to me. And now I understand! [Laughter.] That's such a precious moment, when an actor is approaching the set.'

Coming to TV: The roundtable chat will air on PBS in December

Suspenseful: Olivia talked a bit about her role in the upcoming re-do of TV's Murder, She Wrote

Emma Thompson, 54, who stands out in Saving Mr. Banks, said she was most terrified on a film set when her Sense And Sensibility director Ang Lee told her to 'not look so old.'
Still, she has no gripes about being an actress because back when her mother was involved with the profession, she was criticized for it.
'Actors should really be beyond the pale! We really should,' she insisted.
'My father married my mother [actress Phyllida Law], and my grandmother locked herself in the toilet for a couple of days because "actress" was still synonymous with "whore." Or, as you say here, "ho." [Laughter.]'

Challenges: Amy said her most difficult shoot was with Julia on Charlie Wilson's War because of the weather

Oprah added her own 'ho' story.
'I remember when I said I wanted to be an actress as a teenager. My father said, "No daughter of mine is going to go out there ho-ing herself." And I made a decision then: "Well, all right, I will still major in speech and drama, but perhaps I'll have to teach it or defy my father,"' she said.
Turns out the interviewer has always wanted to act.
'I remember doing an interview with Dustin Hoffman, and he said just casually, "Oprah, you know you want to be on the other side." And I almost started to cry in that moment. [But] after Beloved, I realized it was too hard to manage both,' she added.
Octavia Spencer, 43, who is in Fruitvale Station, had a bit to say about starring in TV's new Murder, She Wrote.
'I'm a short, cute, chubby woman,' she said.
'There are fewer and fewer roles that I haven't done already, or archetypes that I haven't played, and to break out of that box, the most interesting stuff is television.'
Long into the roundtable, Meryl's name came up, and not in a serious way.
After Julia remarked, 'She has the great balance. In her life, acting is a very sort of casual element of it. I like that balance' Emma offered, 'I've snogged her. [Laughter] And what I learned was, you have to use tongues even if you're not a lesbian. We had to do a snog. The angel gives her an orgasm in Angels in America. Mike Nichols can get anyone to do anything.'
The roundtable was taped and will be shown on PBS in December.

She's come a long way, baby: Emma said her mother was called a 'whore' for being an actress

The newcomer: Lupita relayed her first job in the movie business was as a production assistant on The Constant Gardener with Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz