Julia Roberts’ battle to get kids into top North Shore Catholic schools

Julia Roberts, who has rarely been seen since arriving in Australia in March, is trying to get her teenagers into prestigious schools in Sydney’s north shore for the remainder of the year.

She has played a streetwise escort, a ball-breaking environmental activist and an unlucky-in-love movie star who falls for a lowly book shop owner.

But Julia Roberts may be up against her most challenging role yet – that of a lower North Shore private school mum.

Sources close to the visiting A-list superstar, who has remained virtually untraceable since arriving in Australia in March, say the Pretty Woman star is currently running the gauntlet of enrolling her children in some of Sydney’s most exclusive and hard-to-crack schools.

Roberts has three children with husband Danny Moder, with twins Phinnaeus and Hazel, both 16, believed to be preparing to complete their final year of studies Down Under.

Youngest Henry, 13, is also believed to be seeking a place in one of Sydney’s top Catholic boys schools.

Julia Roberts is trying to get her children into school for the remainder of the year. Picture: David M. Benett//Getty

But with such strict enrolment conditions, which can include living within a certain distance of the schools in question, it’s understood Roberts has enlisted the help of her close friend and a former lower north shore schoolgirl Nicole Kidman to help grease the wheels.

Kidman, who like Roberts was raised a Catholic, attended North Sydney Girls High School, while sister Antonia attended nearby Monte Sant’ Angelo Mercy College with both having retained tight connections to their alma maters.

Antonia famously married former husband Angus Hawley in the Monte chapel back in 1996, while Nicole and then husband Tom Cruise looked on.

“If anyone can pull some strings in getting accepted into a top Catholic school in North Sydney you would imagine it’s Nicole,” a film source said.

“But even mega A-list movie stars have to meet a certain enrolment criteria.”

It’s not the first time Kidman has come to her mate’s aid since Roberts’ arrival in Australia. Sources close to the Aussie Oscar winner, who is currently filming the Lucille Ball biopic Being The Ricardos in the US, say she also helped to arrange handlers and temporary visa advisers for the Moders prior to their arrival.

Roberts’ longtime management team at Creative Arts Agency (CAA) in the US didn’t respond
for comment.