For someone who looks quite serene in person, Julianne Moore welcomes
chaos. “I think what I believe in most is that if you can surrender
yourself to all that’s chaotic, it’s a wonderful thing. We really
can’t control anything, and I think a lot can happen if you relax
and realize things are going to be what they are. You can’t try
and predetermine everything.”
For instance, Moore would never have predicted last year’s success:
The 38-year-old actress starred in five movies (Cookie’s Fortune,
An Ideal Husband, The End of the Affair, Magnolia, and Map of
the World), and received two Golden Globe nominations (Affair
and Husband). Both of those movies met with critical acclaim,
proving Moore’s astonishing gift of versatility.
But that really doesn’t suit Moore. “I hate it when things change,”
she says smiling. “People who know that about me tell other people,
‘Don’t change anything on her, she’ll get upset.’”
It’s funny to hear that, coming from someone who can play a porn
star (Boogie Nights), a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown
(Magnolia), and a British woman torn by two lovers (The End of
the Affair). So why the contradiction? “Don’t ask me,” laughs
Moore. “Isn’t that funny?”
Moore actually worked on The End of the Affair and Magnolia last
year, the other three films wrapped in 1998. To fit both movies
into her schedule, Moore had only one day of rest between projects,
something she says wasn’t impossible. “It’s okay, you can do it.
Everybody says ‘Aren’t you going to carry the character with you?’
No, no that’s your responsibility. If you crack up, you crack
up, but the idea is we’re supposed to be professionals, and we
can handle it.
“Besides, it was really exciting to get to work on films that
I cared so much about, where I loved the directors so much or
I loved my co-stars,” she adds. “I felt like I had a really creative
experience. They were so different, and they are exactly what
I want as an actor and that doesn’t happen very often.”
A big part of Moore’s success lies in her collaboration with some
of today’s finest filmmakers. And aside from the rare misstep
(the Sly Stallone dud Assassins), Moore has rarely picked a bad
picture, thanks to her nose for good material. “People always
ask me to compare the directors I’ve worked with because they
are so varied. But the things that link them all are their sense
of vision and their personal acknowledgments of the world. And
these are people who aren’t making movies about something exploding;
they are making movies about human relationships. So Robert Altman
and Paul Anderson share that, as does Louis Malle (Uncle Vanya
on 42nd Street) and Todd Haynes and the Coen brothers. They are
people who have very specific and personal visions.”
Most of last year’s finest scenes can be attributed directly to
Moore: her playful repartee with Rupert Everett as the scheming
Madame Laura Cheveley in An Ideal Husband; her emotional meltdown
at a pharmacy in Magnolia; jogging alone at night, distraught
over her daughter’s death in A Map of the World; and the honest,
evocative love scenes with Ralph Fiennes and her haunting voiceovers
in The End of the Affair. Most actresses can only dream of such
variety. It will be interesting to see if she finally wins an
Oscar this year, since critics agreed she deserved one for Boogie
Nights.
Moore’s next movie should be a big one. Unbreakable is a supernatural
thriller starring Bruce Willis as the sole survivor of a train
wreck. Directed by The Sixth Sense’s M. Night Shyamalan, the picture
also features Samuel L. Jackson as a stranger who helps Willis
understand his mysterious dilemma. Moore plays Willis’ wife. The
movie, which comes out this fall, should be the actresses’ most
popular box-office picture since The Lost World, but odds are
good that Unbreakable will be far more interesting. Moore is also
in negotiations to play Clarice Starling in Hannibal, the sequel
to the Silence of the Lambs, alongside Anthony Hopkins.
Don’t expect Moore to shed any tears if she doesn’t win that elusive
Oscar or if Unbreakable doesn’t shatter the $100 million mark,
however. Her biggest accomplishment these days is her 3-year-old
son Cal (dad is her Myths of Fingerprints director Bart Freundlich).
“It just changes your life. Having a child is the most transcendent
and transforming experience of a person’s life. Before you have
children you’re on one side, and after you have children you’re
on the other. In terms of the way it changed me, it’s completely.
My work has changed because I’ve changed. It makes you a much
more emotionally alive person, so it deepens your work.”
