She walked into the cavernous Casper Events Center, decked out in a black business suit and two-inch heels, her makeup perfect, and when she spoke, the same sassy, confident attitude poured from her lips.

Had they given the attendees at the Wyoming Women's Expo a tub of popcorn and dimmed the lights, it could have been the 2000 premiere of the Academy Award-winning blockbuster "Erin Brockovich."

In truth, the real Erin Brockovich - now the mother of three nearly adult children, successful author and champion of those who need someone to speak up for them - isn't far from the character played by Julia Roberts, said the 47-year-old whose legal work spawned a movie of her life story and brought Brockovich international fame and attention.

There were some subtle differences, Brockovich told the crowd of appreciative women and a few men, between the Kansas-born Brockovich and the leather-skirted, stiletto-heeled and occasionally salty character played by Roberts.

The skirts the real Brockovich wore while working on a class-action lawsuit against a California utility suspected of dumping toxic chromium-6 into a town's drinking water? Waaay shorter than Roberts' mid-thigh wardrobe.

Brockovich's boss, the late attorney Ed Masry, said Brockovich's attitude was closest to that of Roseanne, the sometimes-raunchy comedienne.

Maybe Goldie Hawn, Brockovich suggested.

They picked Roberts, which irked Masry, the man who, along with attorney Joe Vititoe, gave Brockovich a shot at arguing the largest class-action suit in history at the time.

Masry's reaction to Roberts' casting was brusque, Brockovich told the crowd.

"Her (breasts) aren't big enough, her mouth isn't foul enough," Brockovich said Masry told her. "It's never gonna work."

Nevertheless, Brockovich was pleased with the outcome of the movie, the idea of which began after Brockovich told stories of her work to a chiropractor friend, who's husband knew someone who knew actor Danny DeVito and put them in touch with director Steven Soderbergh.

Over the years, people have come to believe Brockovich as the character played by Roberts, which isn't all that bad, she said.

"I am truly a simple girl from the Midwest who managed to change her life through a series of events," said the Kansas-born Brockovich, a former beauty queen and twice-divorced single mother who has remarried since the film came out. "I am not Julia Roberts. I do not make movies or wear push-up bras," she said.

In truth, Brockovich said, "the movie is a product of who I am, and I am a product of the movie."

In weaving tales about the movie and her career, Brockovich noted her success comes from believing in who she is and making her own choices.

"It is truly what is inside of ourselves that makes the difference," she said.

After all, she argued a case on behalf of the 650 people in Hinkley, Calif., against power conglomerate Pacific Gas and Electric, which was leaking toxic hexavalent chromium from a plant into the city's drinking water.

She came on as a clerk at Masry and Vititoe she said, and begged her bosses every day to allow her to check out what they thought was a routine property matter.

"I think that Ed saw something in me that gave him the courage to allow me to lead this investigation," she said.

In one part of the trial Brockovich poured a glass of the tainted water and ordered the utility company's expert to drink it during the trial. He refused, even after being demanded to do so by a judge, and long after he'd told prosecuting attorneys the water was safe.

Pacific Gas and Electric settled with the desert town's residents for $333 million in 1996.

It took a long time, Brockovich said, to stand up to a company like that, especially for someone who in high school was voted least likely to succeed.

"For most of my life, I was what they called the cute but classic underachiever. …I used to believe that myself," she said. "What others placed on me was their limitations. They chose to see me as a loser. That wasn't my choice.

"What people think of you can have an influence - but what really matters is what you think about yourself. You decide who you are going to be."

Even when your day starts, as Brockovich's did upon her arrival in Wyoming, with a $150 speeding ticket on Interstate 15 in Converse County for going 95 mph in a 75 mph zone.

"It was a nice welcome," she said to uproarious laughter.

It was a setback that certainly didn't seem to define her speech at the Events Center, peppered as it was with occasionally ribald language of her story and riffs on the movie which made her a star. Years after the victory over a big conglomerate, she's a law consultant and an author of a book, "Take it From Me, Life's a Struggle but You Can Win."

She praised her father for preaching respect and her mother for teaching her "stick-to-it-ive-ness."

Brockovich isn't a doctor, lawyer or politician, she said, but someone with dyslexia who rose above sometimes questionable circumstances to succeed.

"Each and every one of you has the ability to make the choices for the direction you want to go," she said. "And you will discover your own peace, your own path, your own happiness."