It’s the first sunny day in Los Angeles in four days. Rain and mist have pounded the pavement like a door-to-door salesman, their drops hitting windshields like fists on front doors, ceaseless and without end in sight. Fortunately, Julia Ormond has been away, and she has brought the sun with her upon her return.

Ormond is punctual as she enters through the front door of a café in Brentwood, easy with her footing and innocuously graceful. The actress, touted at the onset of her career as the next Audrey Hepburn, is unfathomably beautiful, dressed casually in white pants and a rather ratty old gray t-shirt. A few snags run from its front pocket like ladders in tights. It’s clear she intends to wear this t-shirt till its death; wasteful isn’t in her nature.

The air is brittle, even inside, and Ormond sips a large, steaming cappuccino. The tables around are empty and the speakers murmur some classical variation that runs beneath the conversation, filling in only sparse pauses. Ormond can chat, and often takes off, running away with her words, her thoughts a child on a wild goose chase in the most wonderfully excited manner.

And such is Ormond’s approach to all aspects of her life — whether personal, political, or professional; that is, she is engaged wholeheartedly, displaying a wonderful tendency to look at all things with a fine tooth comb, to really observe and interpret that which goes on around her.

It’s what first won our hearts as she played opposite Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall. She went on to woo audiences with her grace and gusto in projects such as First Knight, Sabrina, and most recently, in the critically acclaimed HBO miniseries, Temple Grandin. In short, Ormond has remained a veritable force in a profession where career casualties stack as high as dailies.

(Text: Arianna Schioldager / Photos: Peter Ash Lee)

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