ACTRESS Julia Ormond, the dark-eyed beauty with the crisp upper-class English accent, burst onto the scene as the tragic Susannah in the romantic epic Legends Of The Fall opposite Brad Pitt.

The 44-year-old is once again sharing the big screen with Pitt in The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, now showing in cinemas here. In the movie, which has been nominated for 13 Oscars, she plays the daughter of Cate Blanchett's character who is on her deathbed.

Speaking to Life! in December last year in her trailer at the Warner Bros studio lot in Los Angeles, she looked at ease in a dressing gown, chewing on biscuits brought to her because she has had no time for meals.

Her face has lost some of its youthful dewiness which, in a Hollywood that considers ageing a disease, makes her seem a little careless about her looks.

'I'm European, I'm allowed to,' the Surrey-born, Los Angeles-based Briton says with a laugh.

Of Hollywood's love of plastic surgery, she says: 'Not because I disagree with it, though I partly feel it starts to make everyone look the same.'

Read the full report in Wednesday's edition of The Straits Times' LIFE!