The Oscars Series Day 3: Julianne Moore

and performers, to hear their stories. What inspired their creations, what decisions change their careers, what relationships influenced their work. My guest today is Julianne Moore. She's been nominated for an Academy Award four times for Boogie Nights, The End of the Affair, Far From Heaven, and the Hours. David Cronenberg, who directed her recently and Maps to the Stars, said, more is on her sweet, approachable self up until the

moment the camera starts rolling. Then she becomes quote this character that you wouldn't want to spend any time with unquote. I have a flu I need cigarettes American spirit and I needed to pick up some prescriptions Avian Facon and san X It's soft more plays troubled women with a

complicated mix of fierceness and vulnerability. I've had the pleasure of working with her on two different projects, recently Instill, Alice More plays a linguistics professor diagnosed with Alzheimer's have good days, bad days, and on my good days, I can, you know, almost pass for a normal person. On thirty Rock, More was my character's high school crush, Boston native Nancy Donovan. I'll give you two words, full final offer. I'll wait,

not forever, I'll try wicked hard. Julianne Moore's resume is an actor's wish list, with films in every genre horror, suspense, romance, and comedy. Her acting range more than demonstrates that she's comfortable with change. That flexibility springs in part from her childhood. You'd be somewhere a year, maybe two, sometimes three, but Germany,

we were in Panama, we were in Alabama. When you look back on it now, you know, yeah, it's weirdness, so good, but not so bad either, you know, I mean you can't at least your father had a job exactly. It's looking on the bird side, but it's true. Yeah, you know. So we're all kind of a collection of our experiences, and in the sense it really gave me a something. I had an understanding of where I wanted to be in terms of what you do for a living. I think, so you were never there long enough to

connect to people. Did you get into some kind of I didn't get into any trouble. I was very I'm a very good girl, like very good you only played. That's how you get real if you're very sweet, good girl. But no, I think I think it's pretty common that actors come from an itinerant background, you know, creatures kids

and IBM kids and military kids and um. For some reason, I think it teaches you that behavior is mutable, the behavior is not character and once you figure that out, you're like, well, that means that I can behave anyway I want. That people are choosing to behave certain ways. Its speech is a choice, and movement is a choice, and accents are all choices. So it's an interesting thing to understand. I think at a very young age, I lived in the same town my entire life. Why are

you an enctor them? That's interesting. It just had to do with having to entertain yourself. I grew up in an era where there was no iPads, and there was no HBO, and there was no storytelling, and no one would let you watch television. We had a television, but it was when I grew up with the age of like Fantasy Island and Love Bow Show. They were okay. But my point being is that that idea of storytelling, playing voices, dialects, watching movies and remembering every line in

the movie and acting out the movies. That kind of think that was really a big part of my That's interesting, but we didn't know. I lived in the same time my whole life. But you know, it's interesting what you say about narrative, because that's what it is for me too. I was a big reader, you know, and that's what I did from a really early age. And I was that kid who won the library contest every summer. You know,

how many books can you read the library? And would say to me, you know, you can't take out twelve books at a time. I was like, why not, why not? I'll read them. I probably known so I would do. I just read them, read and read and read. And so with that sense of narrative, did you know then you were going to end up doing what you're doing no, I thought it'd be a librarian. Yeah, well, I thought, when did that start to change? You know? I thought

I would be a doctor, a lawyer. I thought I would go to graduate school because my parents wanted that for us. Um. I started doing plays after school in the sixth grade because I couldn't do anything else. I tried out for drill team. I didn't make it. I didn't ever make cheerleading. I couldn't do sorts. I just wasn't you're too good. And I couldn't dance. I couldn't do any of that stuff. So I went out for the play and I got parts in the place, and I was like, oh, this is fun, you know, And

and that was my after school thing. And then I had a teacher when we moved to Germany, some named Roby Taylor, who said, you know, you can do this for a living. And I was like, oh, well, I didn't know anybody who did. I've never been to a play except for high school players or community theater. The people in the movies and on TV didn't seem real. So she had to me a copy of Dramatics magazine and said, you can choose a school. And I came home to my parents, and you know, it was seventeen,

and said, I'm going to be an actor. Who would you tell? My mom and my dad at dinner, and my brother and sister were there too. My mother said, oh, Julie, did everybody in the family look at you like that? Was like, yeah, oh no. Well, my sister was so supportive. She she's a year and three days younger than I am, and she what does she do. She's a lawyer, but she atually works in real estate. And my brother is in advertising. Yeah, he's a writer. He's a novelist and

he works in advertising. But you know, my sister used to help me with all my lines and stuff. She'd run lines with me, and so she kind of always knew. I think that it was a possibility. One of your parents more supportive than the other. They were equally aghast and and yet equally supportive because we lived in Phase and then they were like a couple of Golden globes. Well, you know, they were living in Germany. And I've filled out all these applications. These are days too when you

failed out your own college application. So I applied to the pen Yeah, Carnegie Melon Boston University, and by accident the graduate program at n y U because I didn't read the paper, I guess. So my mother and I flew to New York City where I auditioned for those schools. When I went to in my U one, they were like, how old are you? Eighteen? And they said, you know, this is a graduate program. We don't accept people out

of high school. So days try and then oh, I you know, I just for the other two schools and got into both of them and chose Boston because I wanted to go to Boston rather than had you lived there before, So you don't have roots. And anyway, no, even though people think you think, yeah, yeah, because I looked to be Up and Up Lounge and Keimla Square, that's where you worked with you with school, you went to be you did four years for solid years. Yeah, that was the program. It was good. You know, it

was an undergraduate theater program. When you were done with it, did you feel that you that it helped you that you need or could you have bypassed those four years, you know, and still ended up where you are. That's a very interesting question because I was for some reason thinking about a friend of mine who didn't go to drama school in the car and the way here, and I wonder what it was like for her, because she,

you know, it hasn't seemed to need it. And there are a lot of things that I didn't drama school that I think I didn't need either. But then in retrospect, I'm like, you know, it's helpful. Did you go drama school? Where'd you go? Okay? Did you go straight on to search for tomorrow? The doctors? I can't believe you just said that. I can't believe why, because I have in front of me. I wasn't going to go there right off that window. You were Fanny and Sabrini Hughes. That's right, Franny,

not Fanny, Franny and Sabrina. Someone else was Fanny Hughes. You were Franny, Yeah, I know, I mean, couldn't have been Francy. Was Fanny's Hugh? You were? You were Fanny and Sabrini used on World Turns And before that you did Edge? I did Edge? Were you on Edge? See? If you're on soaps? Only when you're on soap, can you say egg search World Turns days days? That's so funny because I was on Edge when they were on East forty Street and that really really tiny studio. Remember

now Rachel Ray shoots there. Really you're gone. I know they're gone. They're gone. Soaps are gone. This is a couple of his four soaps left, and I worked with people. The guy that played my dad, um Don Hastings, was that he was from there. He started that show. He started on that show two months before I was born, so he had been on that show my entire lifetime when I got on, and he when the show was gone, he was still on it too. He was the most

wonderful guy, so funny. But do you feel in some ways, I mean, in some ways, I don't want to be exaggerated, but he wasn't doing a soap like some of the most honest work you've ever done. Absolutely because you have nothing to help you there. No, no, there's no dialogue. I mean the dialogue is so rough, so basic. All

you're doing is is establishing story. I used to do what they called emotional I called it in any emotional applicate, where if I had to say something that was really just plot oriented, I try to like cry on top of it or laugh on top of it or anything just to make it mean something right, Yeah, because it's all exposition. Well I read somewhere where you said that doing the soap gave you experience and confidence, absolute discipline. It was discipline and confidence because I loved that. Yeah.

Because no one, no one has time to help you. You know, the directors are working really fast, the writers are working fast, the other actors are working really quickly. You're just on your own. Remember Marissa tom May, she played my best friend Marcy. She said, we got into the we got into the elevator and she looked at me and she goes, remember l is for lunch because that was where the lobby was, and so in that cafeteria and that was like the best piece of vice

because it was my own. Remember ell is for lunch. And then we did a scene together and it went by so quickly. You know, we didn't want wanted to have takes or something. And because you feel terrible, don't you, I said, ah, she goes, It happens all the time. You'll get used to it. You're gonna work out from the crappy two out of five days of the week. I just remember when I did that show, you had

to show up on time. I didn't know your dialogue, and no matter how excruciating it was, if you didn't, they fired you. You had to be there at seven o'clock in the morning and rehearse you were on camera. I would have sometimes thirty pages of dialogue a day for three it was like, you know, for three years. So it was like a boom boom boom, boom boom, and then you finished maybe seven thirty eight nine if you go late. You know, it was how long did

you do this? So for the World turns was your contracts? My contract? It was a three year contract for three years CBS they gave they would do three years, the ABC once we do two years and stuff. But they never gave me an option, although they had the option to fire me at any time. Right and when you finished What You Do? I went to the Guthrie Theater actually and I did Hamlet with Hamlet. I saw you you did not I saw you come on something. Yeah, I can tell you right now. I did Loot with

him on Broadway in you did it with Shelco. You did the show the following year, in eight seven, I flew to Minneapolis to see I saw you do. I saw you do Hamlet at the at the Gut three. Well, I was in the hamlet. I was a feeling hamlet. I saw you. What did you think? I thought it was fantastic. You don't remember me? Do you want to know something I do? And Shelkovani, you were very young, you were child. He was probably one of the best Hamlets I've ever seen because he didn't have to push.

He seems like a very dark, kind of conflicted and he also seemed like a very young man. You know. I think that was interesting that both Jelko and I are very very small, very slender and tiny, and we looked like teenagers kind of, you know. So who directed Garland Wright, who I adored. He passed away, but boy, I loved Garland. He was great. It was a really

interesting production. People strained for when they play hammot that he has and she did the Gut three and then and I went to the Wing to Actors Theater of Louisville and did some plays there, and Arthur Coppet play and and then there wasn't an idea that you want to kind of strap yourself into the rocket sled here and get going l A TV movies now now, I mean I just did also worked, I worked at the public, I did some place, and then I met Andre Gregory and I did Vanya and all along though I was

I was auditioning for stuff, and I got TV movies and things, and but it wasn't until I was twenty nine that I got my first movie, which was an HBO movie called Cast a Deadly Spell. And then I did and the Rucks at Cradle, and then I did Shortcuts, and I did Safe and then and then my movie career didn't really start happening till I was twenty thirty. So for it was just theater. Shortcuts was the biggest break you out at that time. Well what happened was

I did Shortcuts, Bonnet Street and Safe. So it's kind of the beginning of the independent theater movement, if you will. And they all came out within the same year. And I went from being an actress who had no profile at all in film, none because I couldn't I couldn't get arrested doing movies. I mean, I would never get cast. I don't know, you know, honestly, I would just didn't

get him. I didn't get him. And in the eighties I can remember, I mean, I just for a ton of things remember addition for the lists of merchant Ivory movies. I always wanted to get one of those because those were such a big deal. I would act for big comedies. I just didn't get them. And I was like, you know, I remember the same thing. You'd be sitting there going, man, I want to give me one of them John Sales movies. That's why I liked to be one of the I

auditioned for him constantly. I never bought them. I actually got really close to a few things, but I never got anything where I did really well. Wasn't television. I kept like booking TV things, but they would put you on hold, and then they do pilots for them, and that's the other thing to my pilots holding deals. They would wouldn't get picked up. Whenever anybody says how do you plan your career? You know, I mean, you laugh because we don't have any control. There's about it. You

seem like somebody who's had a plan. Once you started making films where the things you just didn't do anymore. Did you try to say, I'm going to put all my eggs in this basket. No. Most of the time we just do with what you're offered. You know, you do the best of what you're what you're offered, you know. I think after I was on the soap, I did you know, I didn't spend a lot of money. I

kept my money in the bank. So then I spent some time doing theater because I really felt like I wanted to do that, you know, Yeah, I wanted to do that kind of stuff. And then I would do some TV movies and try to get you know, and then the holding deals to that. You make money doing that, but in between short cuts, yeah, and playing Sarah Palin. It's not a lot of TV in between there. Once you start movies big time, you're making movies. Yes, that's

you don't go back to TVA very much at all. No, No, because also it's kind of it changed, you know, because there was a period to where because now now it's sort of the called you know, now it's the Golden Age or television now. There there was such kind of interesting quality stuff until you know, great writing, great acting, and you know, so I think things have changed, But there was a period when TV was very basic. Network stuff was not terribly interesting. What was it like when

you met Altman? Oh Man, he came to see Vanya. You know, we were doing Uncle Vanya and he sat there and I couldn't believe he was there. I don't even know if I said anything to him that day, because he was He's the reason that I feel like I'm a film actor, because when I would school in Boston, they were all the revival houses. To remember revival houses. This is like Grandpa, Grandma Sha remember that, remember take your walk? Where would you be? I went to the

Bridle Theodore in Harvard Square Haad Square. So the Brittle was the revival house and used to have all these different weird double bills and stuff. And I saw Three Women Altman's Three Women, And somehow I made it through the seventies without seeing Nashville or or Bruster McCloud or Became Mrs Miller, any of those movies. So I'm watching mash So I'm watching this movie and I was like, who's this? Who made this movie? This movie is incredible.

And it was the first time, as a young person that I noticed directorial hand, you know, where I was like, this is a specific kind of storytelling, and it's eliciting specific kind of acting. I kind of walked out of there and I thought, I want to do that, and of course it wasn't in the realm of possibility for me the first ten years of my career. So he's Alvania and then he met me on the player, which I desperately wanted. I remember sitting there talking to him.

He said, I'm not going to give this to you. It's like okay, and that was it. I was devastated. And then I got this phone call out of the blue for shortcuts. Hi, It's Bob Altman. Do you remember me? You know who I am? And I was. I thought was somebody playing a trick on me? I really did. I didn't think it was possible that he you know. That's when we had hard lines to pick up your phone and he said, I have this movie that I want you to do, and I said, I'll do it.

I'll do it because no one want you to read it first, and then you can tell me if you want to do it. You know. But it was really, really, really a dream come true to work with him. What an amazing man. Did you make a movie with him? No? You know, from what I could see, he was someone who listen. It's no secret I think when you're in the business who were out of it, but especially when you're in the business that casting and effective casting is

six or more of a director's job. They want to bring people to the party who know how to hit the ball. And he was someone who I'll never forget. Someone said to me. They were all gathered there in this air sence rehearsals. Some of them were able to attend it somewhere, and Bob just turned everybody and said, uh, nooka may was in its Yanni and field. And he would looked at them and he was like, now a nook, you just go ahead and speak French. You speak French

and tou or English or Italian. Marcello, say whatever you want to say, y'all. Just say anything you want to say, and speak in whatever language you want to speak in, and I'll fix it in the edit, subtitler or whatever. He seems so uncontrolling he he was. The thing about Bob was that you couldn't do anything wrong, so it made you feel like you could do anything, and you would do anything for him. You'd be like, oh, what can I do? What can I do? It's like whatever

you want to do. But it wasn't like it was chaos. You know, he's set up. It was like there was a corral that all the actors were in was his corral and something. Even with an improv he'd say, okay, you know improv this. He said that a let's do it again, but this time you just say that part. So he was in complete control of it. But he

really made you feel so free and so love non judgmental. Yeah, there's a quote I read about you where someone says they cast you in shortcuts and you were total known. That's right, She's a total unknown, they said. I thought, and I think you've been working for most ten years. Ten years. However, within that cast, I was the only person with thirty people who wasn't famous. So it isn't amazing how in the movie business if you haven't a movie any of us have seen exactly what changed if

you did that film? Did you change personally? Did I change? I'm ugly and I have no talents, right, and now i'm and then I thought, and then I was, and then I became yeah, talented and I know everything. You know. It was interesting and I think this is it's actually very similar to what I felt growing up as a kid. You would be In one situation, you'd be at a school and maybe you would be a kid who wasn't very popular and no one thought you were very interesting

or something. And then you'd moved to another school that's cool, everybody would think you were interesting for some reason. It would just happen, and you think, like, well, I was the same person. I haven't changed much, So it's a perception. Perception has changed. The perception was changed after all, so well, and so that's what happened to me too. So after ten years of doing television and theater, although people don't see the theater, so they don't think you really exist.

Is she TV? People thought, oh, she's a TV actress? And then I do work with Andre Gregory and Louis Mall and I work with you, Robert Altman, and I work with Todd Haynes, and suddenly I'm a huge film discovery. I'm in this amazing yeah. And then I'm like, I'm the same, the same thing. So I think, oddly, what happens is that you don't change a perception of yourself. You're like, well, clearly, it's just other people's perception. It solidified my own work ethic that it doesn't matter where

I'm working. Did you feel that the way you grew up fed this in terms of you being because because you had to reinvent yourself. Yeah, well you were seen by a fresh set of again and again and again. You just you have to discover a core self and a corpse. Of course, that's the values. And people kind of poop poo and say like, oh TV or oh this or that. I'm like, you know, it's all valuable,

all of it. You know. Yeah, when I do radio announcing, it's work, it works working, and it's also it's it's valuable for you to do your bus no matter where you are too. I really really believe that you know in everything you do. And I also resent it when people say that they can't do something like they can't they were terrible waitress, And I'm like why because you weren't paying attention. You're supposed to write down. So it's it's important no matter what you're doing, to put effort

into it. I think, did you have a good representation during that time? I did? Well. It's interesting I've been with the same agent now and the same manager for twenty years. My first ten years I did change representatives a few times before I landed where I landed. My first agent was it was terrible. Was this an agency called Hesseltine Baker, you remember them. So they got me out out of school. So they put pulled me out of school. It was a big deal, have an agent.

And I had no auditions at all, nothing, absolutely nothing an agent. Yeah, no one called my answering service. No auditions. And then I got a phone call um Bob Bob Hezeltine and what was it? Who was the guy? Anyway, I remember the guys. But one of the big guys called me and said he had something really really important and a great opportunity for me. And I got so excited, and he said it was for a friend of his. They needed a girl to fit in the costume to

ride on a float in the Thanksgiving aperade. Do you remember what the costume was? I don't. Maybe it was a turkey, a super hot turkey. And that's when I was like, this is ridiculous, Thank you very much, I'm leaving. What advice does an agent give you? Oh, people, they don't give you any advice. They don't. They were like air traffic controllers. Well, here's the interesting thing I think about acting, and I hear this from I hear this

with young actors and stuff too. And when people would say in the press, they say, I didn't choose that, you know, my agent chose that for me. And my agent said I should do it, or so and so made me do it. And I'm like, that's bologney. No one makes you do anything. It isn't interesting when you run into that type of person who's heavily, heavily coached by agents and composes, which is such a foreign thing

to me. Yeah, I mean it is your life, you know, and it's and you make the decisions and you control you know, you can totally self determining the material you've done. Yeah, ever talked into doing a movie. I've talked myself into doing things for money, you know. But but then but then I have, but I take responsibility for it. I don't think there's anything where somebody said you really should do this piece where I did it unless I felt

like there was an economic imperative. But mostly Julianne avoids the money trap. She works instead with some of the best in the business. Coming up, she'll discuss her collaborations with David Cronenberg and Gus van Zant. Next time on Here's the Thing, I talk with tennis legend John McEnroe. His idea to improve the game will not surprise you if you really want to make the game more popular. To me, no umpires on the court, no linesman. You

don't need linesmen. They've already proven they can't see anything over the course of last fifty years. John McEnroe talks tennis, family and his love of music. Next time on Here's the Thing. This is Alec Baldwin. My guest today is Julianne Moore. I have always assumed that Moore picked her projects carefully, and that she turned down mediocre films that offered huge payots. To be honest with you, I mean, I would like to say that I did, but I don't.

I didn't have a whole like huge, leading leady people hiring you. What were they hiring you for? I don't know. I mean, I mean a lot of things that I've done, we're smaller but budgeted things. I think, what did they expect from you? Acting? Was I have an idea? But you tell me? Really, I don't know. Well, you know, in the nineties, in particular, when there are a lot of people who were working, who are who were writer directors and they were kind of, I'm sort of a

really great, great period for independent film. I think people were looking to tell these really unusual stories and there wasn't an economic expectation on them either. That's changed. So it was about being involved in that narrative and that in that vision and stuff. You know. It really was bringing that story to life, I think. But yeah, I mean in the commercial films that I've done, I've done I've done, yeah, but I had I've had great directors

like Steven Spielberg and Ridley Scott only did the first sequel. Yeah, he did the first one and then they was out of it. Does the opportunity to work with him that was amazing? But did that take forever? It took six months? I guess. Yeah. You know. I did a movie called Nine Months that also took six months back in those days, you know, But I don't think I ever took off as a commercial movie. You could. Really, what do you think you did Jurassic I don't know. I don't know

that I could have. I mean, I did you send singles to the business that you were not in that game? People do that well, honestly, I don't think so, I don't think I did. I think I was, you know, I think I kind of was like all Playball. But I don't know that any of those movies were hits. You know. I was in Hannibal. That wasn't a huge hit. I don't know, you know, I really, I really don't know. But I do know that I really like what I do. You know, I like you made every kind of movie.

I've made every kind of You've made every kind of movie. Yeah. Yeah, You've done movies with Steven Spielberg, that's right. You've done sequels or Anthony Hopkins chops his own hand off because he's so in love with you. Right, I've done independent drawing movies Anderson, Yeah, scary movies. Bad did you do? I don't know what I have. They didn't remake Psycho and Black and whaty did it in color? Did it

in color? Yet? But that was a remake. That was a shot by shot that I know, you know, so which which in an interview I read you thought that was something you should not have done. I think it failed. I don't think that I shouldn't have done it, but I do think that when you're doing the film that is a shot by shot. I mean not just saying this fascinating psychologically when you do a film. I mean, I'm not just saying this for your benefit. You are

a very very, very very talented woman. And Van's aunt is a good director director. What does van Zant when he's remaking a shot by shot one of the greatest thrillers in history? Did van Zant have to say anything to bolster you to get through that experience? But he's like trying to know, and it wasn't like it wasn't like we had to be bolster to get through it. I think we're all very specifically trying to create recreate it.

But in a month and now, I wish if if we're do it again, I would like to do it in black and white. I'd like to do it in the same costume. I'd like to do it with the exact same information. Let's do the better remake of Psychic that that to me, I think that would have been that we sort of modernized it but then helped the old pacing and it was Yeah. She who's great? Oh um um. Vince Vaughan was as a director, he was great. He's such a lovely person, very very soft spoken, you know,

just incredibly incredibly soft spoken. I liked him a lot. I'd like to work with him on something that he you know that. I loved Elephant Elephant. I always tell people see Elephant, which is his Columnbine Films, Oh my, what an amazing film. It's been amazing film. It's like the most hypnotic film that has a Columbine type of theme to it. And I love Gus. I think Us is incredible. I think my favorite kind of acting to do. Though.

We saw Todd Haynes, my friend Todd Haynes, I made Far from Heaven and Safe with and we had dinner together and we were talking about our experience and he said, why did you understand? How did you understand how minimal the acting was going to be? And I said, I felt like I saw it in the language. His language was so spare and so specific, and then I would say, let me see the frame, and his frames were also I felt like he was communicating so much just in

the frame. So my favorite things an actor is to know what the director's vision is, to be communicated that way through the language and in the shot, and then I'm like, now, I know what I'm doing. Give me an example. Well, like when Todd Todd at a shot of a very wide living room, you know, and at a baby shower, and there were a bunch of women all the way at the right side of the frame. I had crossed all the way across and was standing up on the left side of frame, and I just

asked where the lady's room. And my only line is, can you tell me where the lady's room is, please, or something like that. And I could see it was all about this movement of her kind of trying to reach over these people. So so once I looked at that, I was like, okay, well I can see if I hunched my shoulders forward, then my then this little figure is kind of bowed in this big wide frame, you know.

So he's telling the story of alienation. You know, you don't have to talk about anything, you just do it. It's great. When I was saying before, how I think, you know, I know what it is people hire you for what they expect from you. I think that the ingredient in the meal that you are it is a

tremendous amount of emotional truth. You have a kind of emotional residence but you turn on and off, you know, like I always I want to talk to about pet Anderson for a minute, Like when you do Boogie Nights and that character you played, you played someone who was so cut off to that. Then that's what I from

her reality. What I perceived was was did you make a choice with this woman that famous scene you have with him where he's going to have sex with you when you tell him you can have this to me, and you're very do this, do this, do this, you can do this to me, go ahead, go ahead, and you're kind of holding it. It's like his first day at school. Or she's a complete denial about what's going on.

And she's someone who's made an economic choice. You really, she's given up her family, has given up her child. She probably was in a position where this was the only kind of work she could get. She's a drug to meet any of those people, Yeah, she's a drug addict. My favorite scene in the movie is when she goes

to court to get custody of her son. We're talking about booge Nights who are listening, and she's all dressed up and she's trying to be kind of a straight arrow and stuff and she feels very self righteous about getting her child back, and the judge looks at her

and says, Maggie, have you ever been arrested? And that's the end, and you go, oh my god, this you know, she's she's of course she's been arrested, you know, and she's just sobs and sobs and stops, and you go, So, this is a woman who in her head thinks that she can be a parent, but she's she can't. She's not living a life is going to allow herself to parent a child, but she won't. It's a huge space between what she feels about herself and what the actual

what was actually happened. That's the first time you worked with Anderson. Yeah, what have you been doing before that? What did he see you when Safe? I don't know. I think he saw me and but I think he saw the shortcuts and Safe and Vannie and all that stuff. You know. Paul was very young, he was twenty six. We met. We met at a party and a friend of mine introduced me to him and said, this guy wrote this script and he wants you to do it. And I was like, I would love to read it.

And he said, you're going to be in my movie. Man got the script and I read it and I was like, holy cow, yes, I am, um, this is fantastic. He has such an original voice. Was so exciting. It was such an amazing story and so emotional and wonderful and rich, and yeah, I was lucky to get it. You know what you were saying. I was thinking about, how let me talk about emotion, you know on camera and stuff. You have that too. You have this, You have this tremendous vitality, like a real sense of being

alive and a lot, a lot contained inside you. And it's wonderful to work with you because it just permeates the scene, like you know, you feel that. That's the trick. The trick is how do you live on camera? How do you become alive on camera? So there's all the stuff about acting, you know, you can kind of create all this kind of stuff, you know, yeah, be alive, be alive. You did that great thing when we had

that scene in Still Alice. You know, we had to say, remember Santorini, which is always really hard to start a scene with that kind of thing, and and you said, and then you made these are laughing so hard, And then I started laughing and then suddenly it's a scene about two people laughing because trying. But you know it's it's like, that's what you want, you know. That's why I like to talk when I work. What do people expect from you or think of you when they meet you.

I think they think that I'm going to be more serious than I am. I guess because all the dramas and the crying and stuff, they think that I'm going to be really dramatic and Sam motion of the film. Yeah, but I'm not. As you know, I'm not a very serious person and I'm not a very I'm not a terribly sad person. You are sure, Yeah, I can be serious, but I like to I'm very chatty. I like to talk all the way up to action. I do. I do, And if you can't talk to me, I'm really disappointed.

Then I get lonely, and I want to be lonely when I won't, I want to be with my buddy. I'm going to talk to me. You talk to me and my friend. Let's be buddies. Talk to you. What did you do this morning? What do you have for dinner last night? What are you doing later today? Are you cold? You like that sweater. Don't you like my sweater?

What are you doing? Action acting? I love it. That's my favorite part is then you get this great connection with other human being and then the scenes like comes alive. You know, you think that that emotion is so available to you. Why it's inside It's inside everybody everyone, So it's like, how do you access that? You know, your own story, everybody else's story. You know, what you're getting on top is just like the tiniest little like shell.

Other than that, there's all this stuff. But then, but then, like I said, it's easier for me to get into it when I'm when I'm shot, you know, talking to you about you know how much I like your sweater? And you know where you live? And are you going to rent or are you going to buy? Or you know all that kind of stuff. You know, how are your kids? You know? How was seventh grade for so and so? I mean, I I love all that stuff. I remember when I was younger, I think it was

even unconsciousness. I would see people acting films, and the predominant examples would be like Brando or Gina or something like that, where them breaking down wasn't a big deal. These are like notes you played in music, like that's just what people do. I didn't think about it, like like it was separate because I went to Strasbourg where they really they put you in the frying pan and they really made you get to that. And I went to act to school for a year where we basically

cried for like they will. They try to get you used to being able to do. But the funny thing is is that that's just a technique to get you to tap into it because people don't really behave that way, but you have to find it once again. It's all about what's true, what's real. It's like guns in movies and guns going off and people hitting people. Sometimes, especially early on in my career, people be like and then someone gets slapped, and I thought, wait, people don't slap

each other, and if somebody does, it's shocking. So remember that when when there's a physical altercation, you're shocked by it. When people cry, it's upsetting. You're not trying to cry. You're trying not to cry because you don't want to be embarrassed, you know. So it's like, so all that acting school stuff is about learning how to locate all those feelings but then over time, with experience, you learn,

like the greats like Brando, to modulate them. When you worked with PT with Paul Thomas Anderson, Boogie Knights was the first film was he helpful to. He was a director who did it all basically take care of itself. Because it was take care of itself. I have to say the great directors, all the greatest directors say very

very little. Magnolia was harder because it was so emotional and I was really trying to plot it, you know, because I had to literally cry in every scene, and so I had to I'm like, all right, Paul, Paul, this is this is like the smaller crying into the bigger, crying at the biggest, crying to the big, big, big, you know. So it's like I had to find a way to not be. It wasn't like the level of hysteria had to change, you know. I had to be modulated.

I couldn't be at ten. I had to be at two and you know, get to ten and all that kind of There are times when I'll say to director, I want you to watch my vocal pattern. I want you to watch my level of hysteria. I want you to whatever but basically I want them to direct the movie. Do you know I feel like I feel like they're a It's a misnomer that the director is an acting coach. The director is there to direct the audiences I through

a film. The actor is doing the acting. They shouldn't have to say, you know, I think a tough time with the director. How was it tough? Without naming names? What was tough when they talk to me too much? Well, because I always say to everybody, please don't speak to me before I've done any acting, I said, because I'm just trying to hang onto this. Yeah, see what I come up with. And if I'm way off base, and please, by all means, come up and say like, wow, that

wasn't what I expected. But if I hear too much, I mean, this is gonna sound really silly and precious. But I always say that acting. So it's like this little flame and you've got this little thing and you're thinking, okay, I want to say this to work, but you don't want to blow it out. If somebody comes along and says this is what I think, they might just blow it out and then you have nowhere you know, then

you can't reach it anymore. And that was emotional as you are, and you have this remarkable emotional residence in your work. What do you like privately, to the extent that you want to say, You're a mother. Yeah, I'm married. Before I was married, I'm married now. But I've been with my husband for eighteen years. We have two children, they're sixteen and twelve. I have a fantastic, fantastic family. I have two dogs. They're black, one is small and one is big, a Chihuahua and a lab and uh.

We live in New York City. I have a really nice life. I'm really really lucky. You try to keep it simple, oh man, Yeah, I really do. I try to keep it. He tag team work because he makes films. He makes films and television too. You know, we've been very fortunate. I mean, it's interesting because the work life balance thing is always an issue for everybody when they're little. When they were babies, it was super super easy because babies don't know where they are and you can bring

them everywhere. Yeah, and also we have an incredibly tolerant business toward women with children. I have to say thank goodness for the movie business. I remember my son was when I was doing Psycho. As a matter of fact, my son was nine months old and I was still getting used to having a baby, and he was always with me and stuff, and he was hysterical in the trailer one day and I was nursing him and trying

to him to calm down. They knocked the trailer door and they said, you know, we need you, and I was like, I can't come, and this adorable p a said, no worries, man, take your time, and I was like, holy cow, I'm the luckiest woman in the world, you know, I mean so so our business is very tolerant. We're lucky, and I have no complaints as an actress. Did you turn down a lot of work with your family? So

you do? You do? I shut you turn things down because you can't travel, you know, You're like, once the kids are in school, I can't go. I can't go in Australia in a few days and I feel terrible. Yeah, it's tough, and it's tougher on women because when you have infants, you know, I mean, it's it's easier for you because you can go and come back or it doesn't make it mean it's emotionally easy for you. But yeah, so I work. I try to work. If I have to travel, I do it in the summertime when everybody

can come. I work in the city when they're in school, and I you know, try alright, bunch of things. If I have to travel, a bunch of together, and you know, and I have a partner who's an equal parent, and we alternate. Michael Fox said the time once years ago, he said, they send you a script. Into the script said open on the skyline of Manhattan. He closed the script and say, I'm in. That's it. Absolutely just you have no idea. This tax break in New York City

has been a godsend to me. You gotta keep that going. It's amazing because I've been able to do so many movies at home. I mean it really and yeah, I'm like, it's New York alright, fine, it's great, or at least a place that has an airport that's really accessible and you can, you know, go in and out for three days. Someone who is as well regarded and who's made as many great films as you've made. When you're one of those people that you look over the list of films

you've made, it's kind of amazing. The list of movies that you've done. Uh, when you think about co stars of yours, men and women that you worked with, were there times you did films that you just thought yourself, God, I'm so lucky that you were really sited. Do you get excited to people? Give me a couple of examples of people over the years and you work with you were really happy? Alec No, no, no, seriously, but tho, Okay, no,

it's true. It's true. I love you. I always wanted to work with you and I had at such a great time. That's why I wanted Wash to stop talking so I could send The director would come up and give us notes and look, I give you this look like can't you see that Julie and I are hanging out? Yeah, this better be important. Anyways, some other people if I loved, Oh my gosh, Ray Finds. We had a great time together on end of the affair was really really special,

like a great, really great connection. James Grow, you know James le Grow. He's a friend of mine. I've worked with him on a couple of movies Single Man. Oh yeah, Colin, he was amazing. You know, I've worked at so many men. I never worked with women. I mean, Laura Dern and I worked together. She played a small part in a movie that were I had no women to tell you did the hours, You didn't have scenes with that. We were all in separate movies. So I remember. I was like,

so I got to be great friends with Laura. I was so excited that she was there and we had and she did this beautiful thing. It was a scene where I'm supposed to be with a bunch of women at a party and it's like the first time I've been out and I feel really independent and terrific, and and she's this lovely woman I've only corresponded with. And we had this big scene all the women are chatting and talking and she looked over at me. And this is off camera, by the way, too, so you can

you know you wouldn't you can see this. It was just personal and she grabbed my hands, squeezed it and like winked, gave me a little wink and I almost burst into tears because that's what the scene was. That what it was like for my character, like to be seen by this other woman, to have this connection, this friendship, and Laura just did it, and I was like, oh, I love you so much. It really is remarkable when you have that kind of experience with with an actor,

that sort of connection. I love it. Can you name one role you played that It was really hard. It was really a challenge, and when it was over and you saw the film, you thought, you know, that's a pretty good movie. For the hours did The hours was really really hard. It was a really hard shoot. My son was three, and we worked really long hours. And I would get home and he'd be waiting up. Was

in London and he was waiting up for me. He wouldn't go to sleep until I got home, you know, because he slipped in my bed for a long long time until he was four and a half. Um. He'd be mortified to hear that on the radio, but it was hopefully you won't listen, you won't listen, but he um. So I was worriored about getting home. I was in scenes with another little boy who was not easy to deal with because he was only six and he was kind of all over the place. We kept changing shots.

It was very hard, and I just couldn't feel like I was getting anything right. And I think each and all these separate segments and then I saw the movie to Get and I was like, Holy Cow's movie beautiful. I mean, you just don't know, you really don't know. You don't know. Ever, Yeah, you did a film recently and you were you can explain the whole travel slip up here where you weren't able to accept this award, but you won Best Actress and I can film and you were there. I did. I was there while I

was there for an entire week. So I've gotten there to do work for Loreal, who I work with, and then I had Hunger Games pressed because they were doing something. And then I had a film and competition called Maps the Stars David Cronenberg. Movie was Cronenberg, the same as the other ones. But he didn't say very much. No, he isn't saying anything, very very little. Um. So at that point, I've been there for seven days. I was

really exhausted. And we got home and it was Thursday before Memorial Day weekend, and Friday we picked our kids up from school and we came out to Montalk where I have a house, and Saturday morning is when the awards happened in Cannes, and I wasn't expecting anything, and I figured if they were going to tell me something

that they would let me know. And I just got a phone call while I was folding towels at the pool after sweeping out my shed and stuff like that, Memorial Day weekend, saying you just I just accepted Best Actress for you I can from Bruce Wagner, the screenwriter. I was stunned. What kind of movie is it. It's a Cronenberg film, you know. It's as a movie about

all these people in Hollywood. It's it's about families. I think, actually, I mean a lot of people think that it's about Hollywood, but I really think it's about families and about people's desire to connect and be seen and instead of being seen intimately by a family member, they want to be validated by the outside world, and how destructive that is and how cruel it can be. It's really rough. And David did this. This is what was cool about seeing

how director communicates to you. Because my first day of shooting and he was setting up these shots and he brought me in on a kind of a long angle and I sat down at a table and he shot Mia Washakuska and he shot me, And then I realized that he didn't do a two shot, and that we didn't ever come into each other's frame. We never crossed frames. At one point I came around, I entered her frame, but I never pushed into her frame. There was never any physical So everyone in the film is isolated, and

I was like, oh, I get it. So you know, he's kept everybody purposely isolated, and it's really devastating to see something shot that way, with that kind of remove, and that you think all these people want to do is be in a frame with one another. You know, that's all we do. We're usually right on top of each other, is people, and David kept everybody very separate. So it's sort of heartbreaking, very erotic film. No, No, you wish it's not. It's it's not erotic. No, why

did you say that? Are you telling the truth? Why did people tell me the Comic Works movie? You're completely you have a three way, you went two other people. Very it is, but it's comical. It's a comical three way. You know those come okay, Well that's a course of a different color. Yeah, it's not very sexy, I have to say. And funny, the funniest thing about the three

way is that she's in bed. It's this terrible This poor desperate woman is in bed with another man, another woman, and the man gets up to answer the phone and gets on the phone with a director it's working with. And my character desperately wants a part in the in this movie. So as she's sort of with this other woman, she's just trying to hear him on the phone. And he hangs up and the first thing she says is mention me when you talk tell me about Oh. I

love him so much. He's a guy that you would expect to be really nutty, you know, because from all his films, he's so smart. He's interested in absolutely everything. He he can speak eloquently on any subject. He loves people, devoted to his family. Has worked with the same crew, the same DP for the last thirty years or so. You know, lives in Toronto, works in Toronto and makes movies about kind of extreme human behavior. But it's all

within the realm of possibility. Look at a movie like Existence, So which was so precient with that kind of crazy, with that gaming going inside your head for the virtual reality and Jason, the brilliant Jennifer Jason, and with the portal. You know that that weird portal they have. But yeah, so, I mean he really pushes with the possibilities of the imagination are and and and our own, you know, physical possibilities. And he's driven I think by his own intellect and curiosity.

He's a wonderful man. What are your kids? What are your kids? My kids are great. My son is sixteen. He's very tall, he's going to get even taller. He loves basketball, he loves music. He's an accomplished musician. He's like his dad. He's like his dad and a surfer and snowboarder. And physical, yeah, physical, but also very sensitive, emotional boy and hard working. It works very hard. My daughter is just twelve. She's tall and slender. She loved

to ride horses. She loves fashion. She makes close. He's a sewing machine. She loves you, Alec. She's always like, hi, oh is that Alex God, you look sous. So Gorge's like thanks, thanks, She's like, well, thank you for saying so funny. Oh my goodness. She is fun She's a great spirit. She did this imitation. We were watching the vm as and she's playing it for me, and they did it. They cut to the Kardashians and the audience watching, and then she's like, mom, mom, this is what they

look like. And then she and it was it was hysterical. I was like, you're right, that was really funny. So I don't know. So she's already but I don't know, right, Actually she wants to be a fashion designer, So we'll see. Who knows. You work a lot, and when you're not working, and if you have, especially if you have a decent spell of time off, what do you like to do with yourself? I spent a lot of time with my kids, taking them to school, bringing them mom school, Yeah, doing

all the mom stuff. I'm very interested in my house. I like to decorate my house, go to my yoga place a lot. I'd love that I've been intermediate in you for ten years. I like to say years. She's good is really good. And then sometimes like this last summer, last winter, I guess we had a friend who could teach watercolor. So all my friends from from yoga got together and we took watercolor lessons and then we learned

how to kind of like do deco page. I know that sounds crazy, but it was sort of a fun thing to do. And I love to read and you read scripts, you think about what you want to do next, and when you're not acting, are you mindful of that and you're grateful for the time and you're glad to have time off and be with your family, or do you like sitting there going I want to get back to working. Well, you know kind of thing. I know, I am a workaholic in the sense that I really

like to be working. I like, I love to be at work, Like I love the crew, I love the cast, the other actors. I like the idea going to work. I like, no, I'm scared of that. I ran into Matthew Broderick the other day and I said, aren't you scared of the people, And he said, no, I mean I like it. It's really helps when it's a comedy. And I was thinking about him and Nathan Lane, and you know, you know when you watch Nathan Lane and he gets a laugh and then he stretches and it's

like he makes the laugh bigger. And I think Nathan has a sense almost like if you were tickling a kid, like you know how to tickle a kid a little bit and again, yeah, and Nathan like does it like he tickles the audience and I don't feel like I have any sense, so that I think I have too much fear of a live audience. I like to pretend that no one's there, which is why I like movies. I like to pretend there's no one there, like I'm in the book. Julianne Moore continues to step into the unknown.

She's currently working on Free Held with Ellen Page, Steve Carrell, and Michael Shannon. It's based on the Oscar winning two thousand seven documentary about two women whose life story led to changes in the domestic partnership laws in New Jersey. This is Alec Baldwin.