HOLLYWOOD superstar Julia Roberts, pregnant with twins, has been hospitalized with early contractions, People magazine reported.

Roberts, 36, was admitted Saturday and placed on a fetal monitor, according to People. Roberts is expecting a boy and a girl in early January with cameraman husband Danny Moder. The magazine, citing unnamed sources, said the contractions stopped but the actress remains under medical supervision.

Roberts, who won the best actress Oscar for her role as a crusading US lawyer in the 2000 film Erin Brockovich and Moder had reportedly been trying for some time to start a family.

The movie star married Moder at a surprise ceremony at their hideaway home in the western US state of New Mexico in July 2002.

Roberts was previously married to singer Lyle Lovett, with whom she walked down the aisle in 1993. That union lasted only 21 months.

Roberts shot to worldwide fame after playing a loveable prostitute in 1990’s Pretty Woman, a role for which she was nominated for a best actress Academy Award, and then took on a role in 1989’s Steel Magnolias which won her a best supporting actress nod.

The actress, known for her luminous smile, also starred in such hits as the romantic comedy Notting Hill opposite Hugh Grant and appeared in last year’s 1950s period drama Mona Lisa Smile.

Agence France-Presse