25 years after the release of Erin Brockovich, the achievements of the beloved movie’s real-life heroine are still being uncovered — even by those closest to her.
“I walked in on my grandkids who happened to be watching Erin Brockovich,” Brockovich, 64, exclusively told Us Weekly while promoting her role as Global Ambassador for Made By Dyslexia. “They go, ‘That’s you? So, Julia Roberts is playing you, but that’s not you?’ I go, ‘Yes, it is me! She’s playing me!’”
Brockovich rose to international fame after Roberts, 57, played her in the 2000 movie about her quest for justice against Pacific Gas and Electric in Hinkley, California. Roberts would win the Best Actress Oscar for her performance.
While the Academy Award-winning film cast a spotlight on her activism, Brockovich’s day-to-day life has also remained focused on her family, including her four grandchildren — who are slowly but surely learning their grandmother is someone special. (Brockovich shares daughter Elizabeth, 34, with her second husband, Steven Brockovich, and son, Matt, 42, and daughter Katie, 30, with her first husband, Shawn Brown.)
“They don’t really pay a whole lot of attention to it because to them, I’m just Gigi,” Brockovich said of her grandkids. “But as they’ve gotten older, they ask a few more questions. It’s a trippy, weird experience.”
Two-and-a-half decades since the release of the movie, Brockovich is thrilled it continues to be relatable for audiences.
“It’s always a good story when an underdog rises up, right?” she said. “I just can’t believe it’s been longer than 25 years. I was 31 years old then and a single mother of 3. Now I’m 64 and a grandmother of 4. I’m glad the message still resonates.”
Brockovich, who has dyslexia, is now using her notoriety to shine a light on how being dyslexic can be a powerful tool through her role as a Global Ambassador for Made By Dyslexia, a movement and global charity founded by Kate Griggs.
“There are about a billion dyslexics out there who often slide through the cracks, especially through the education system because they process different and they’re not understood,” Brockovich explained. “They can be set aside. To be able to have this opportunity to open up the world to a billion dyslexics and these incredible, creative, well-thought out, visual minds — if we can bring them all together, just the energy and change that it creates for the future for them — I just think it’s outstanding.”
She added, “I can’t tell you without getting really excited and standing up and doing jumping jacks.”
Brockovich called her role with the organization as “some of the most significant work any of us could do at a global level.”
In addition to spearheading the Made By Dyslexia charity and movement, Griggs also hosts the podcast “Lessons in Dyslexic Thinking,” on which Brockovich was recently a guest.
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