Aston Villa supporting Tom Hanks took a jibe at Julia Roberts for her love of Manchester United in a recent television appearance in the United Kingdom.
Being interviewed on the popular BBC television series The Graham Norton Show, Roberts claimed that “I’ve been to Old Trafford, I’m a true fan.”
She attested that the root of her support for the club originated when her three young children started to play soccer.
She claimed that she had no idea how interesting watching the sport was and this led her to United.
The star of the Hollywood blockbuster, Pretty Woman, claimed “we just got so into it and somehow Manchester United just became our team, the Moder (her husband’s surname) family team. And we became sort of possessed.”
However, sitting next to her on the couch, another Hollywood A-lister, Tom Hanks quipped, “anybody can root for Man United!” Roberts quickly retorted, “Oh, that’s not cool.”
Clearly Hanks has not seen much of the Red Devils this year if he still has that opinion. A dour 1-0 loss to Newcastle United last night is far from easy to support for many United fans across the globe.
The star of the massively popular Cast Away film claimed he chose Villa because when he first came to England and was following the scores of the football on the BBC, all the teams had “kooky” names. However, once reading Aston Villa, he felt that sounded “like a lovely place”.
He explained that he later learnt that the team were based in Birmingham but it “is a fabulous place” and that Villa Park is a fantastic stadium to visit.
Roberts’ support of the 20 time English champions does not only seem to interest fans at Old Trafford, however. The manager of cross-city rivals, Manchester City, also seems to have a keen interest in the fact. Bizarely, in an interview in March, Pep Guardiola asserted, “I have three idols in my life: Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and Julia Roberts”.
The Catalan complained that when Julia Roberts came to England a few years ago, she chose to visit Old Trafford and not the Etihad stadium. He claimed United were not that good in that period and City were, yet she still didn’t come. The former Barcelona boss made the tougue-in-cheek comment, “even if I win the Champions League, it cannot make up for Julia Roberts not coming to see us.”
Unfortunately for United fans, Pep did go on to win the Champions League in June with Manchester City but at least they can take solace in the fact that one of his idols only has eyes for the red side of the city.