Roberts' control over her career is certainly having an impact on the next generation of actresses following in her footsteps. "When you get to a place where you have that much power, it allows you a kind of grace and ease that I find inspiring," says Gyllenhaal, 26, whose breakthrough role was in last's year's controversial black comedy Secretary.

"I know I'm powerful in this industry, but I don't really feel it within myself, which is something I think she does," adds Dunst, who starred in last year's box-office hit Spider-Man, and at the tender age of 21 commands $5 million a picture.

In Mona Lisa Smile set in the early 1950s, Roberts plays a freethinking art teacher from California who travels cross the country to join the teaching staff at the all-girls Wellesley College. Once there, she encourages her students to make their own choices.

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