This week was Julia Roberts’s birthday, and she turned 57 years old.
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And, in honor of her birthday, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert shared an old clip of Julia talking about what she does to relax on their TikTok page. The interview is from 2019 when she was on the show promoting her film Ben Is Back.
In the clip that has now been viewed nearly 2 million times, host Stephen Colbert asks Julia if she has anything she does that helps her relax.
Julia then reveals she plays a game called Mahjong with her girlfriends once a week.
And, when the audience immediately starts applauding, both Julia and Stephen are stunned to see that many members of the audience play it as well.
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A man in a suit on a talk show set with subtitles:
They both continue in complete shock at how much louder the audience gets after they ask again if anyone plays it.
Julia was so happy people found it helped calm them as well.
So, if you’ve never heard of or played Mahjong before, it is a tile game that resembles Dominos and was created in China in the 19th century. The goal is to get 14 of your tiles into four sets and one pair.
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Julia explained, “The concept of it is to create order out of chaos based on random drawing of tiles.”
Stephen — whose grandma had the game when he was growing up — said it sounded complicated but deep.
“It’s sort of like life. Every day we try to make a little bit of order out of the chaos of life just with our random acts of, hopefully, wisdom and kindness,” Julia added in the interview.
You can learn more about the history of Mahjong here.
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Right away, people in the comments who’ve never played were convinced they needed to try this game.
Mostly because of Julia’s deep explanation of how to play it.
However, there were lots of other people who already play it, and they opened up about how much the game has helped them in different ways. Some talked about how it helped them through grief:
Others shared how it helps their anxiety:
Many also shared how their loved ones taught them how to play at young ages:
And that it is a brain-challenging game great for socializing:
People are obsessed with it:
Apparently, it is pretty easy to learn, which is great!!! Have you ever played? Let us know in the comments.
Julia, a class act who shares little tidbits of her life that may help others in theirs. Happy belated birthday!!!
Gareth Cattermole / Gareth Cattermole / Getty Images / @colbertlateshow / tiktok.com
You can watch the full interview here: