Julia Ormond at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival Photo by Matt Carr

Thirteen years ago Julia Ormond was the toast of Tinseltown. She had been cast as the female lead in three major Hollywood vehicles alongside some of the biggest stars of the '90s. Ormond's breakout year was 1995, with leading roles in Legends of the Fall (starring Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins), First Knight (opposite Sean Connery and Richard Gere), and Sabrina (opposite Harrison Ford). The British stage actress, who got her break in a television series called Traffik (which was later adapted by Soderbergh into the Oscar-winning film of the same name), was quickly swept up into the Hollywood machine and was touted as the next Julia Roberts.

When Ormond was flown from New York to Las Vegas on a chartered private jet to pick up the ShoWest award for Female Star of Tomorrow (former winners had included Nicole Kidman and Winona Ryder), her success seemed all but assured. But the flood of roles slowed down to a trickle, and a grueling shoot on the Russian blockbuster The Barber of Siberia (which failed to get U.S. distribution) in 1998 left Ormond "creatively spent." She took a break; she married, had a daughter, and became actively involved in human rights. Ormond's return to film has been gradual, with an appearance in David Lynch's INLAND EMPIRE and a role in the Lindsey Lohan dud I Know Who Killed Me in 2006 and 2007, respectively. Now, in this wide-ranging interview conducted in Cannes and New York, Ormond talks about her vastly divergent projects coming out in 2008.

Has your daughter ever owned an American Girl doll? How familiar were you with the doll and book franchise before the Kit Kittredge movie?
She does now. I was beginning to feel like one of the only people on the planet who hadn't heard of it... But I read the script and loved it, and now I am very aware of what it is.

Did this particular story have more of an impact on you given the film's social issues — unemployment, social stigmatization, prejudice?
All of those things. What I liked about it was how it packaged all of those things and how it felt like it was done in a way that is very family-friendly, child-friendly, and entertaining. To me, it didn't sit on a high moral pedestal preaching down to people. It really becomes a mystery for this kid to [solve]. It is kind of a romp and a lot of laughs. I think Joan Cusack, Stanley Tucci, [and the others] are great fun characters. Although there are aspects of it where people make choices that you think, "Gosh, I hope I would make those choices in the same circumstances," when things turn bad for Kit she is not happy about it [but] is pretty [resilient]. She [is confronted with] stigma in a way that makes her struggle with it and come through to save the day in the end. And I think that is what the message of the film does without really hammering it into you.