She’s one of Hollywood’s most admired actresses. So how is Julianne Moore still something of an enigma? And why does she keep worrying about what she’ll do if people stop hiring her? Jennifer Dickinson finds out.
Julianne Moore, one of the most admired actresses in the world, 55-year-old mother of two, consummate professional, turned up for the first day of shooting her new film, Maggie’s Plan – how shall I put this? – somewhat worse for wear. Not at all what we have come to expect from a woman so consistently, well, perfect. From her nuanced performances to her unerring fashion choices, Moore is never less than impressive.
But, in this case, we should cut her a little slack, because filming on director Rebecca Miller’s comedic story of adultery, divorce and relationship interdependency began the day after Moore won her first-ever Oscar statuette.
“I was up all night, got on a plane Monday evening, flew home, went to bed, then got up the morning and went to the set,” says Moore. “I wish I’d given myself a day to recover, but poor Rebecca kept having to move the start date because both Ethan [Hawke] and I were nominated that season. So there Ethan and I were, on that Tuesday morning, on ice skates!”
This scenario is entirely representative of the actress. Not the hangover-on-the-job part, but the dedicated, all-in-with-gusto part. She may have become known for a time as the queen of misery (check out Julianne Moore Loves to Cry, a YouTube homage to her on-screen moments of despair) but in person, it is her warmth that strikes you most. She has described herself as like “a Labrador, I mean no harm”, and yes, she is irrefutably nice, friendly to absolutely everyone on The Edit’s set. But actually, and somewhat surprisingly, it is more than that: Julianne Moore is fun. There’s a whisper of mischief and a camaraderie that lights her up in a way that sounds like pretension until you witness it, and puts you helplessly, happily under her spell.
In Maggie’s Plan, she gets to indulge that impish side, playing the demanding wife of a man [Hawke] who leaves her for Greta Gerwig’s far more compliant Maggie. It was Moore’s idea for her character, Georgette, to be foreign – her Danish accent is, of course, impressive – because she loved the idea of this woman’s behavior being so alien to those around her.
“Rebecca and I were shooting the scene where I meet Maggie for the first time, and I said, ‘I want to kiss her!’ In that way that Europeans kiss Americans and we’re not ready for it. I wanted her to be disarming. She is genuinely trying to have some kind of connection with her ex-husband’s wife; she wants it to work.”
Why is Moore’s capacity for humor so surprising? I’m going to blame the fact that, wow, this woman is smart. And we so often equate smart with serious. Moore is emotionally perceptive – she credits that to an itinerant childhood following her military father – but she’s also logical and analytical. I like to think of myself as able to read a person and, in this line of work, use that to my interviewing advantage, but Moore is running rings around me.
It’s a familiar feeling, I think, when it comes to meeting Moore: her Still Alice co-star, Kristen Stewart, confessed to a similar sense of awe in her presence. It’s not about celebrity star power; for someone with a résumé spanning 29 years and 79 on-screen credits, Moore is unusually... quiet. Her meticulously observed characters stand out almost more than she does, which is just fine with her, because what drives her to work tirelessly and on primarily niche, low-budget projects is an unabating passion for the job.
“I like [acting] more the older I get, and that has surprised me, because I’ve always been waiting for the other shoe to drop, the day I’ll be like, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore!’” says Moore. “But instead, it’s more compelling to me. I like the act of figuring it out, I like learning things... Like right now, I’m playing a character who is deaf, so I’m learning about deaf culture and learning some very rudimentary sign language, and that’s exciting to me.”
The puzzle of people is one that never gets boring for the actress. Originating in that childhood of changing surroundings, meeting new people and working out their particular humanity is what gives Moore her buzz. Even today, she’s turning the tables, trying to unlock my story as I attempt – far more ineptly – to understand hers. “So many actors come from these peripatetic backgrounds; it makes you adaptable and observant,” she says. “You have to be observant as an actor, you have to really know people – the way they dress, the way they move, the way they talk... That’s how you know, ‘Ok, well, I’ve got to do it like this.’”
Over the years, Moore has chosen parts and projects that are challenging in terms of public consciousness and perceptions. Lately, there has been Freeheld, the real story of police officer Laurel Hester and her battle to ensure her registered domestic partner, Stacie Andree [Ellen Page], could inherit her police pension following her death from cancer. And Still Alice’s Alice Howland, whose early-onset Alzheimer’s at the age of 50 helped us to see that, beyond sympathy for a cruel diagnosis, was the need to continue to try and connect with the person inside, even as they become lost. Despite that, Moore does not credit Hollywood with a role beyond reflection. “I don’t believe that cinema takes the lead. By the time we see something in a movie, generally it’s something that already exists in the world. It allows people to feel seen, so there will be people who see it and say, ‘Oh, that’s my story!’ It’s a way of corroborating what’s happening, and that corroboration is what moves things forward. It is hubris to think that film creates those changes, but I do think that it resonates the change, and allows people to speak it themselves.”
Despite her absorbing performances, Moore is not the kind of actress who lives her roles; she understands every facet of her characters, but does not allow them to drip into her off-set life. As she tells it, to her children – Caleb, 18, and Liv, 14, with her second husband, director Bart Freundlich – the only role they identify her with is as their ‘steady’ mother. “A couple of years ago I got an award, and they did one of those film clubs. My kids came and they had seen one or two of my movies, but they hadn’t seen them all, and they were shocked! Shocked!” recalls Moore. “First of all, they were shocked that I had done so many movies, and then, that I seemed to be doing these outrageous things.”
An outrageous performance is something that Moore has never shied away from. In Robert Altman’s Short Cuts, her 1993 breakout role, she argues with her husband while naked from the waist down. In 1997’s Boogie Nights, her veteran p*rn star Amber Waves schools Mark Wahlberg in the art of the ‘money shot’: “On my t***, if you can, Ok? Just pull it out and do it on my stomach and my t***, if you can.” To Moore, though, such risks are negligible.
“I’m emotionally brave, but I’m not physically brave,” she explains. “[With acting] the fear comes in when you think that you won’t do a good job. I have to work really hard to figure it out. But I don’t feel afraid of it – it’s pleasurable.”
Smart woman that she is, Moore’s interest in fashion is not restricted to the red carpet, though she denies any particular aptitude for it. “I love the little shops in my New York neighborhood. And I’m a big fan of Net-a-porter – it’s embarrassing how often I’m on the site!” she says. “I love clothes, but I wish I was a more imaginative dresser; I’m better at interiors. I admire people who are able to do it easily, it takes me a lot of thought.”
Day-to-day, she has a uniform: “Jeans, clogs or Birkenstocks and a cropped Margiela sweatshirt. I like to wear things that I can move in, because I’m always trying to get somewhere, taking my kids someplace, going to a meeting…”
For those red-carpet moments, Moore has a contact list of the world’s best designers, perennially keen to dress her. “I love the Chanel dresses I wore to the Oscars this year and last year,” she says. “Everything Riccardo Tisci has made for me has been beautiful, all those Givenchy dresses. And the things that Tom [Ford] has made for me... Going way back, when he was at Ysl, he made a strapless green dress for me that was really spectacular.”
I have time for one last question, a final opportunity to redeem myself. How would you feel if someone said you couldn’t act anymore? “Ohhhh. I think about that, you know, I think about that a lot,” she says. “Because it’s not a guarantee, my job. It could happen, if suddenly people stopped hiring me. What would I do? I don’t know."
For an actress who just keeps getting better, it’s a question she’ll likely never have to answer.
Maggie’s Plan is out May 20
It really doesn't get any chicer or cooler than this. She looks f**king perfect.
