Roberts was born in Biloxi, Mississippi. His Minneapolis, Minnesota-born mother, Betty Lou Motes (née Bredemus), was a one-time church secretary and real estate agent, and his father, Walter Grady Roberts, was a vacuum cleaner salesman. Roberts's parents, one-time actors and playwrights, met while performing theatrical productions for the armed forces and later co-founded the Atlanta Actors and Writers Workshop in Atlanta, Georgia off of Juniper Street in Midtown; the two divorced in 1971. His younger siblings, Julia Roberts (from whom he was once estranged but reconciled since 2004) and Lisa Roberts Gillan, are also actors. His mother later married Michael Motes and had a daughter, named Nancy Motes, who was born in 1976. Roberts was raised in Atlanta, Georgia and attended Grady High School.