Julianne Moore (born Julie Anne Smith; December 3, 1960) is
an American actress. Prolific in cinema since the early 1990’s, Moore is active
in both art house and Hollywood films. She is particularly known for her
portrayals of emotionally troubled women, and has received many accolades
including the Academy Award for Best Actress.
After studying theatre at Boston University, Moore began her
career with a series of television roles. From 1985 to 1988, she was a regular
in the soap opera As the World Turns,
earning a Daytime Emmy for her performance. Her film debut was in 1990's Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, and
she continued to play small roles for the next four years – including in the
thriller The Hand That Rocks the Cradle
(1992). Moore first received critical attention with Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993), and successive
performances in Vanya on 42nd Street
(1994) and Safe (1995) continued this
acclaim. Starring roles in the blockbusters Nine
Months (1995) and The Lost World: Jurassic
Park (1997) established her as a leading actress in Hollywood, although she
continued to take supporting roles.
Moore received considerable recognition in the late 1990’s
and early 2000’s, earning Oscar nominations for Boogie Nights (1997), The End
of the Affair (1999), Far from Heaven
(2002), and The Hours (2002); in the
first of these she played a 1970’s pornography actress, while the other three
featured her as an unhappy, mid-20th century housewife. She also had success
with films such as The Big Lebowski
(1998), Magnolia (1999), Hannibal (2001), Children of Men (2006), A
Single Man (2009), and The Kids Are
All Right (2010), and won a Primetime Emmy and Golden Globe for her
portrayal of Sarah Palin in the television film Game Change (2012). The year 2014 was key for Moore, as she joined
the popular Hunger Games series, was
named Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival for Maps to the Stars, and won an Oscar for her role as an Alzheimer's
patient in Still Alice.
Early life
Moore was born Julie Anne Smith on December 3, 1960, at the
Fort Bragg army installation in North Carolina. Her father, Peter Moore Smith,
was a paratrooper in the United States Army, who later attained the rank of
colonel and became a military judge. Her mother, Anne (née Love; 1940–2009),
was a psychologist and social worker from Greenock, Scotland, who emigrated to
the United States as a child in 1950. Moore has a younger sister, Valerie, and
a younger brother, the novelist Peter Moore Smith. She considers herself half
Scottish and claimed British citizenship in 2011 to honor her deceased mother.
She also has Irish and English ancestry.
Moore frequently moved around the United States as a child,
due to her father's occupation. She was close to her family as a result, but
has said she never had the feeling of coming from one particular place. The
family lived in multiple locations, including Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Panama,
Nebraska, Alaska, New York, and Virginia, and Moore attended nine different
schools. The constant relocating made her an insecure child, and she struggled
to establish friendships. Despite these difficulties, Moore later remarked that
an itinerant lifestyle was beneficial to her future career: "When you move
around a lot, you learn that behavior is mutable. I would change, depending on
where I was ... It teaches you to watch, to reinvent, that character can change."
When Moore was 16, the family moved from Falls Church,
Virginia, where she had been attending J.E.B. Stuart High School, to Frankfurt,
Germany, where she attended Frankfurt American High School. She was clever and
studious, a self-proclaimed "good girl", and she planned to become a
doctor. She had never considered performing, or even attended the theatre, but
she was an avid reader and it was this hobby that led her to begin acting at
the school. She appeared in several plays, including Tartuffe and Medea, and
with the encouragement of her English teacher she chose to pursue a theatrical
career. Moore's parents supported her decision, but asked that she train at
university to provide the added security of a college degree. She was accepted
to Boston University and graduated with a BFA in Theatre in 1983.
Early roles
(1983–1993)
"There was already a Julie Smith, a Julie Anne Smith,
there was everything. My father's middle name is Moore; my mother's name is
Anne. So I just slammed the Anne onto the Julie. That way, I could use both of
their names and not hurt anyone's feelings. But it's horrible to change your
name. I'd been Julie Smith my whole life, and I didn't want to change it."
Moore moved to New York City after graduating, and worked as
a waitress. After registering a stage name with Actors' Equity, she began her
career in 1983 with off-Broadway theatre. Her first screen role came in 1984,
in an episode of the soap opera The Edge
of Night. Her break came the following year, when she joined the cast of As the World Turns. Playing the dual
roles of half-sisters Frannie and Sabrina Hughes, the intensive work provided
an important learning experience for Moore, who looks back on the job fondly:
"I gained confidence and learned to take responsibility", she has said.
Moore appeared on the show until 1988, when she won a Daytime Emmy Award for
Outstanding Ingenue in a Drama Series. Before leaving As the World Turns, she
had a role in the 1987 CBS miniseries I'll
Take Manhattan. Once she had finished on the soap opera, she turned to the
stage to play Ophelia in a Guthrie Theater production of Hamlet opposite Željko
Ivanek. The actress sporadically returned to television over the next three
years, appearing in the TV movies Money,
Power, Murder (1989), The Last to Go
(1991), and Cast a Deadly Spell
(1991).
In 1990, Moore began working with stage director Andre
Gregory on a workshop theatre production of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. Described by
Moore as "one of the most fundamentally important acting experiences I
ever had", the group spent four years exploring the text and giving
intimate performances to friends. The same year, Moore made her cinematic debut
in
Tales from the Darkside: The Movie,
playing a mummy's victim. Her next film role did not come until 1992, but
introduced her to a wide audience. The thriller
The Hand That Rocks the Cradle—in which she played the main
character's friend—was number one at the US box office, and Moore caught the
attention of several critics with her performance. She followed it the same
year with the comedy
The Gun in Betty
Lou's Handbag. Moore continued to play supporting roles throughout 1993,
firstly appearing in the Madonna flop
Body
of Evidence, which she later regretted, and then in the romantic comedy
Benny & Joon with Johnny Depp. She
also appeared briefly as a doctor in one of the year's biggest hits, the
Harrison Ford thriller
The Fugitive.
Rise to prominence
(1993–1997)
The filmmaker Robert Altman saw Moore in Uncle Vanya, and
was sufficiently impressed to cast her in his next project: the ensemble drama Short Cuts (1993). Moore was pleased to
work with him, as it was Altman who had given her an appreciation for cinema
when she saw his 1977 film 3 Women in
college. Playing artist Marian Wyman was an experience she found difficult, as
she was a "total unknown" surrounded by established actors, but it
proved to be Moore's breakout role. Variety magazine described her as
"arresting", and noted that her monologue, delivered naked from the
waist down, would "no doubt be the most discussed scene" of the film.
Short Cuts was critically acclaimed,
and received awards for Best Ensemble Cast at the Venice Film Festival and the
Golden Globe Awards. Moore received an individual nomination for Best
Supporting Female at the Independent Spirit Awards, while the monologue earned
her a degree of notoriety.
Short Cuts was one
of a trio of successive film appearances that boosted Moore's reputation. It
was followed in 1994 with Vanya on 42nd
Street, a filmed version of her ongoing Vanya production, directed by Louis
Malle. Moore's performance of Yelena was described as "simply
outstanding" by Time Out, and she won the Boston Society of Film Critics
award for Best Actress. Moore was then given her first leading role, playing an
unhappy suburban housewife who develops multiple chemical sensitivity in Todd
Haynes' low-budget film Safe (1995).
She had to lose a substantial amount of weight for the role, which made her ill
and she vowed never to change her body for a film again. In their review,
Empire magazine writes that Safe "first established [Moore's] credentials
as perhaps the finest actress of her generation". The film historian David
Thomson later described it as "one of the most arresting, original and
accomplished films of the 1990s", and the performance earned Moore an
Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Actress. Reflecting on these three
roles, Moore has said, "They all came out at once, and I suddenly had this
profile. It was amazing."
Moore's next appearance was a supporting role in the
comedy–drama Roommates (1995),
playing the wife of Peter Falk. Her following film, Nine Months (1995), was crucial in establishing her as a leading
lady in Hollywood. The romantic comedy, directed by Chris Columbus and
co-starring Hugh Grant, was poorly reviewed but a box office success and
remains one of her highest grossing films. Her next release was also a
Hollywood production, as Moore appeared alongside Sylvester Stallone and
Antonio Banderas in the thriller Assassins
(1995). Despite negativity from critics, the film earned $83.5 million
worldwide. Moore's only appearance of 1996 was as the artist Dora Maar in the
Merchant Ivory film Surviving Picasso,
which met with poor reviews.
A key point in Moore's career came when she was cast by
Steven Spielberg to star as paleontologist Dr. Sarah Harding in The Lost World: Jurassic Park—the sequel
to his 1993 blockbuster Jurassic Park.
Filming the big-budget production was a new experience for Moore, and she has
said she enjoyed herself "tremendously". It was a physically
demanding role, with the actress commenting, "There was so much hanging
everywhere. We hung off everything available, plus we climbed, ran, jumped off
things ... it was just non-stop." The Lost World (1997) finished as one of
the ten highest-grossing films in history to that point, and was pivotal in
making Moore a sought-after actress: "Suddenly I had a commercial film
career", she has said. The Myth of
Fingerprints was her second appearance of 1997, where she met her future
husband in director Bart Freundlich. Later that year, she made a cameo
appearance in the dark comedy Chicago Cab.
Widespread
recognition (1997–2002)
The late 1990’s and early 2000’s saw Moore achieve
significant industry recognition. Her first Academy Award nomination came for
the critically acclaimed Boogie Nights
(1997), which centers on a group of individuals working in the 1970s
pornography industry. Director Paul Thomas Anderson was not a well known figure
before its production, with only one feature credit to his name, but Moore
agreed to the film after being impressed with his "exhilarating"
script. The ensemble piece featured Moore as Amber Waves, a leading porn
actress and mother-figure who longs to be reunited with her real son. Martyn
Glanville of the BBC commented that the role required a mixture of confidence
and vulnerability, and was impressed with Moore's effort. Time Out called the
performance "superb", while Janet Maslin of The New York Times found
it "wonderful". Alongside her Oscar nomination for Best Supporting
Actress, Moore was nominated at the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild
awards, and several critics groups named her a winner.
Moore followed her success in Boogie Nights with a role in the Coen brothers' dark comedy The Big Lebowski (1998). The film was
not a hit at the time of release but subsequently became a cult classic. Her
role was Maude Lebowski, a feminist artist and daughter of the eponymous character
who becomes involved with "The Dude" (Jeff Bridges, the film's star).
At the end of 1998, Moore had a flop with Gus Van Sant's Psycho, a remake of the classic Alfred Hitchcock film of the same
name. She played Lila Crane in the film, which received poor reviews and is
described by The Guardian as one of her "pointless" outings. The
review in Boxoffice magazine regretted that "a group of enormously
talented people wasted several months of their lives" on the film.
After reuniting with Robert Altman for the dark comedy Cookie's Fortune (1999), Moore starred
in An Ideal Husband—Oliver Parker's
adaptation of the Oscar Wilde play. Set in London at the end of the 19th
century, her performance of Mrs. Laura Cheverly earned a Golden Globe nomination
for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy. She was also nominated in the Drama
category that year for her work in The
End of the Affair (1999). Based on the novel by Graham Greene, Moore played
opposite Ralph Fiennes as an adulterous wife in 1940’s Britain. The critic
Michael Sragow was full of praise for her work, writing that her performance
was "the critical element that makes [the film] necessary viewing."
Moore received her second Academy Award nomination for the role—her first for
Best Actress—as well as nominations at the British Academy (BAFTA) and Screen
Actors Guild (SAG) awards.
In between her two Golden Globe-nominated performances,
Moore was seen in
A Map of the World,
supporting Sigourney Weaver, as a bereaved mother. Her fifth and final film of
1999 was the acclaimed drama
Magnolia,
a "giant mosaic" chronicling the lives of multiple characters over
one day in Los Angeles. Paul Thomas Anderson, in his follow-up to
Boogie Nights, wrote a role specifically
for Moore. His primary objective was to "see her explode", and he
cast her as a morphine-addicted wife. Moore has said it was a particularly
difficult role, but she was rewarded with a SAG nomination. She was
subsequently named Best Supporting Actress of 1999 by the National Board of
Review, in recognition of her three performances in
Magnolia, An Ideal Husband, and
A
Map of the World.
Apart from a cameo role in the comedy The Ladies Man, Moore's only other appearance in 2000 was in a
short-film adaptation of Samuel Beckett's play Not I. In early 2001, she appeared as FBI Agent Clarice Starling in
Hannibal, a sequel to the Oscar
winning film The Silence of the Lambs.
Jodie Foster had declined to reprise the role, and director Ridley Scott
eventually cast Moore over Angelina Jolie, Cate Blanchett, Gillian Anderson,
and Helen Hunt. The change in actress received considerable attention from the
press, but Moore claimed she was not interested in upstaging Foster. Despite
negative reviews, Hannibal earned $58
million in its opening weekend and finished as the tenth highest-grossing film
of the year. In three more 2001 releases, Moore starred with David Duchovny in
the science fiction–comedy Evolution,
appeared in her husband's dramatic film World
Traveler, and acted with Kevin Spacey, Judi Dench, and Cate Blanchett in The Shipping News. All three films were
poorly received.
The year 2002 marked a high point in Moore's career, as she
became the ninth performer in history to be nominated for two Academy Awards in
the same year. She received a Best Actress nomination for the melodrama Far from Heaven, in which she played a
1950’s housewife whose world is shaken when her husband reveals he is gay. The
role was written specifically for her by Todd Haynes, the first time the pair
had worked together since Safe, and
Moore described it as "a very, very personal project ... such an
incredible honor to do." David Rooney of Variety praised her
"beautifully gauged performance" of a desperate woman "buckling
under social pressures and putting on a brave face". Manohla Dargis of the
Los Angeles Times wrote, "what Moore does with her role is so beyond the
parameters of what we call great acting that it nearly defies categorization."
The role won Moore the Best Actress award from 19 different organizations,
including the Venice Film Festival and the National Board of Review.
Moore's second Oscar nomination that year came for
The Hours, which she co-starred in with
Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep. She again played a troubled 1950s housewife,
prompting Kenneth Turan to write that she was "essentially reprising her
Far from Heaven role". Moore said
it was an "unfortunate coincidence" that the similar roles came at
the same time, and claimed that the characters had differing personalities.
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called the performance "wrenching",
while Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian praised a "superbly controlled,
humane performance". The Hours was nominated for nine Academy Awards,
including Best Picture. Moore also received BAFTA and SAG Award nominations for
Best Supporting Actress, and was jointly awarded the Silver Bear for Best
Actress with Kidman and Streep at the Berlin Film Festival.
Established actress
(2003–2009)
Moore did not make any screen appearances in 2003, but
returned in 2004 with three films. There was no success in her first two
ventures of the year: Marie and Bruce,
a dark comedy co-starring Matthew Broderick, did not get a cinematic release; Laws of Attraction followed, where she
played opposite Pierce Brosnan in a courtroom-based romantic comedy, but the
film was panned by critics. Commercial success returned to Moore with The Forgotten, a psychological thriller
in which she played a mother who is told her dead son never existed. Although
the film was unpopular with critics, it opened as the US box office number one.
In 2005, Moore worked with her husband for the third time in
the comedy Trust the Man, and starred
in the true story of a 1950’s housewife, The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio.
Her first release of 2006 was Freedomland,
a mystery co-starring Samuel L. Jackson. The response was overwhelmingly
negative but her follow-up, Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men (2006), was highly acclaimed. Moore had a
supporting role in the dystopian drama, playing the leader of an activist
group. It is listed on Rotten Tomatoes as one of the best reviewed films of her
career, and was named by Peter Travers as the second best film of the decade.
Moore played an FBI agent for the second time in Next (2007), a science fiction action
film co-starring Nicolas Cage and Jessica Biel. Based on a short story by Philip
K. Dick, the response from critics was highly negative. Manhola Dargis wrote,
"Ms. Moore seems terribly unhappy to be here, and it's no wonder."
The actress has since described it as her worst film. Next was followed by Savage
Grace (2007), the true story of Barbara Daly Baekeland—a high-society
mother whose Oedipal relationship with her son ended in murder. Moore was
fascinated by the role, but the film was considered controversial for its
explicit depiction of incest. She told an interviewer, "Obviously you do
have some trepidation about that kind of stuff, but it's not being celebrated.
This is presented as a tragedy." Savage
Grace had a limited release, and received predominantly negative reviews.
Peter Bradshaw, however, called it a "coldly brilliant and tremendously
acted movie."
I'm Not There
(2007) saw Moore work with Todd Haynes for the third time. The film explored
the life of Bob Dylan, with Moore playing a character based on Joan Baez. In
2008, she starred with Mark Ruffalo in Blindness,
a dystopian thriller from the director Fernando Meirelles. The film was not
widely seen, and critics were generally unenthusiastic. Moore was not seen on
screen again until late 2009, with three new releases. She had a supporting
role in The Private Lives of Pippa Lee,
and then starred in the erotic thriller Chloe
with Amanda Seyfried and Liam Neeson. Shortly afterwards, she appeared in the
well-received drama A Single Man. Set
in 1960s Los Angeles, the film starred Colin Firth as a homosexual professor
who wishes to end his life. Moore played his best friend, "a fellow
English expat and semi-alcoholic divorcee", a character that Tom Ford, the
film's writer–director, created with her in mind. Leslie Felperin of Variety
commented that it was Moore's best role in "some time", and was
impressed by the "extraordinary emotional nuance" of the performance.
A Single Man was named one of the 10
best films of the year by the American Film Institute, and Moore received a
fifth Golden Globe nomination for her work.
Television and comedy
(2010–2013)
Moore returned to television for the first time in 18 years
when she played a guest role in the fourth season of 30 Rock. She appeared in five episodes of the Emmy-winning comedy,
playing Nancy Donovan, a love
interest for Alec Baldwin's character Jack Donaghy. She later appeared in the
series finale in January 2013. She also returned to As the World Turns, making a cameo appearance as Frannie Hughes
when the show was cancelled in 2010. Her first big-screen appearance of the new
decade was Shelter (2010), a film
described as "heinous" by Tim Robey of The Telegraph. The
psychological thriller received negative reviews and did not have a US release
until 2013 (retitled 6 Souls).
Moore next starred with Annette Bening in the independent
film The Kids Are All Right (2010), a
comedy–drama about a lesbian couple whose teenage children locate their sperm
donor. The role of Jules Allgood was written for her by writer–director Lisa
Cholodenko, who felt that Moore was the right age, adept at both drama and
comedy, and confident with the film's sexual content. The actress was drawn to
the film's "universal" depiction of married life, and committed to
the project in 2005. The Kids Are All
Right was widely acclaimed, eventually garnering an Oscar nomination for
Best Picture. The critic Betsy Sharkey praised Moore's performance of Jules,
who she called an "existential bundle of unrealized need and midlife
uncertainty", writing, "There are countless moments when the actress
strips bare before the camera—sometimes literally, sometimes emotionally ...
and Moore plays every note perfectly." The
Kids Are All Right earned Moore a sixth Golden Globe Award nomination and a
second BAFTA nomination for Best Actress.
"I read her biography, books that were written about
her and the election, listened to her voice endlessly on my iPod and worked
with a vocal coach. I basically immersed myself in the study of her, and
attempted to authenticate her as completely as possible ... It was tremendously
challenging to represent someone so very well-known and idiosyncratic, and so
recently in the public eye."
For her next project, Moore actively looked for another
comedy. She had a supporting role in Crazy,
Stupid, Love, playing the estranged-wife of Steve Carell, which was
favorably reviewed and earned $142.8 million worldwide. Moore was not seen on
screens again until March 2012, with a performance that received considerable
praise and recognition. She starred in the HBO television film Game Change, a dramatization of Sarah
Palin's 2008 campaign to become Vice President. Portraying a well-known figure
was something she found challenging; in preparation, she conducted extensive
research and worked with a dialect coach for two months. Although the response
to the film was mixed, critics were highly appreciative of Moore's performance.
For the first time in her career, she received a Golden Globe, a Primetime
Emmy, and a SAG Award.
Moore made two film appearances in 2012. The drama Being Flynn, in which she supported
Robert De Niro, had a limited release. Greater success came for What Maisie Knew, the story of a young
girl caught in the middle of her parents' divorce. Adapted from Henry James's
novel and updated to the 21st century, the drama earned near-universal critical
praise. The role of Susanna, Maisie's rock-star mother, required Moore to sing
on camera, which was a challenge she embraced despite finding it embarrassing.
She called Susanna a terrible parent, but said the role did not make her
uncomfortable as she fully compartmentalized the character: "I know that
that's not me".
Following her well-received performance in What Maisie Knew, Moore began 2013 with
a supporting role in Joseph Gordon-Levitt's comedy Don Jon, playing an older woman who helps the title character to
appreciate his relationships. Reviews for the film were favorable, and Mary
Pols of Time magazine wrote that Moore was a key factor in its success. Her
next appearance was a starring role in the comedy The English Teacher (2013), but this outing was poorly received and
earned little at the box office. In October 2013, she played the demented
mother Margaret White in Carrie, an
adaptation of Stephen King's horror novel. Coming 37 years after Brian De
Palma's well-known take on the book, Moore stated that she wanted to make the
role her own. By drawing on King's writing rather than the 1976 film, Mick
LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that she managed to
"[suggest] a history – one never told, just hinted at – of serious damage
in [Margaret's] past." The film was a box office success, but was
generally considered an unsuccessful and unnecessary adaptation.
Awards success
(2014–present)
At 53 years old, Moore enjoyed a considerable degree of
critical and commercial success in 2014. Her first release of the year came
alongside Liam Neeson in the action–thriller Non-Stop, set aboard an airplane; response to the film was mixed
but it had a global revenue of over $198 million. She followed this by winning
the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for her portrayal of Havana
Segrand, an ageing actress receiving psychotherapy in David Cronenberg's black
comedy Maps to the Stars. Described
by The Guardian as a "grotesque, gaudy and ruthless" character, Moore
based her role on "an amalgam of Hollywood casualties she had
encountered" and drew upon her early experiences in the industry. Peter
Debruge of Variety criticized the film but found Moore to be
"incredible" and "fearless" in it. Moore's success at
Cannes made her the second actress in history, after Juliette Binoche, to win
at the "Big Three" film festivals (Cannes, Venice, and Berlin). She
also received a Golden Globe nomination for the performance.
In the third instalment of the popular
Hunger Games film series,
Mockingjay
– Part 1, Moore played the supporting role of President Alma Coin, the
leader of a rebellion against The Capitol. The film ranks as her
highest-grossing to date. Her final appearance of 2014 was one of the most
acclaimed of her career. In the drama
Still
Alice, Moore played the leading role of a linguistic professor diagnosed
with early onset Alzheimer's disease. She spent four months training for the
film, by watching documentaries on the disease and interacting with patients at
the Alzheimer's Association. Critic David Thomson wrote that Moore was
"extraordinary at revealing the gradual loss of memory and confidence";
according to Kenneth Turan, she was "especially good at the wordless
elements of this transformation, allowing us to see through the changing
contours of her face what it is like when your mind empties out." Several
critics commented that it was her finest performance to date, and Moore was
awarded with the Oscar, Golden Globe, SAG, and BAFTA for Best Actress.
Moore began 2015 by starring as an evil queen in Seventh Son, a poorly received
fantasy–adventure film, co-starring Jeff Bridges. As of February 2015, she has
three upcoming projects. In November, she will reprise her role of Alma Coin in
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2.
Her other roles include Freeheld, a
drama based on a true story about a detective and her same-sex partner (with
Ellen Page), and the romantic comedy Maggie's
Plan (with Greta Gerwig).
Reception and acting
style
Moore has been described in the media as one of the most
talented and accomplished actresses of her generation. As a woman in her 50’s,
she is unusual in being an older actress who continues to work regularly and in
prominent roles. She enjoys the variety of appearing in both low-budget
independent films and large-scale Hollywood productions. In 2004, an IGN
journalist wrote of this "rare ability to bounce between commercially
viable projects like Nine Months to
art house masterpieces like Safe
unscathed", adding, "She is respected in art houses and multiplexes
alike." She is noted for playing in a range of material, and the director
Ridley Scott, who worked with Moore on Hannibal,
has praised her versatility. In October 2013, Moore was honored with a star on
the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She has been included in People magazine's annual
beauty lists on four occasions (1995, 2003, 2008, 2013).
"I never care that [my characters] are 'strong'. I
never care that they're even affirmative. I look for that thing that's human
and recognizable and emotional. You know, we're not perfect, we're not heroic,
we're not in control. We're our own worst enemies sometimes, we cause our own
tragedies ... that's the stuff that I think is really compelling."
Moore is particularly known for playing troubled women, and
specializes in "ordinary women who suppress powerful emotions".
Oliver Burkeman of The Guardian writes that her characters are typically
"struggling to maintain a purchase on normality in the face of some secret
anguish or creeping awareness of failure". Suzie Mackenzie, also of The
Guardian, has identified a theme of "characters in a state of alienation
... women who have forgotten or lost themselves. People whose identity is a
question." Her performances often include small hints at emotional
turmoil, until there comes a point when the character breaks. The journalist
Kira Cochrane has identified this as a "trademark moment" in many of
her best films, while it has led Burkeman to call her the "queen of the
big-screen breakdown". "When she does finally crack," writes
journalist Simon Hattenstone, "it's a sight to behold: nobody sobs from
the soul quite like Moore." Ben Brantley of The New York Times has praised
Moore's ability to subtly reveal the inner-turmoil of her characters, writing
that she is "peerless" in her "portraits of troubled
womanhood." When it comes to more authoritative roles, Brantley believes
she is "a bit of a bore". "Emotional nakedness is Ms. Moore's
specialty," he says, "and it's here that you sense the magic she is
capable of."
An interest in portraying "actual human drama" has
led Moore to these roles. She is particularly moved by the concept of an
individual repressing their troubles and striving to maintain dignity. Parts
where the character achieves an amazing feat are of little interest to her,
because "we're just not very often in that position in our lives."
Early in her career, Moore established a reputation for pushing boundaries, and
she continues to be praised for her "fearless" performances and for
taking on difficult roles. When asked if there are any roles she has avoided,
she replied, "Nothing within the realm of human behaviour". She is
known for her willingness to perform nude and appear in sex scenes, although
has said she will only do so if she feels it fits the role.
Regarding her approach to acting, Moore said in a 2002
interview that she leaves 95 percent of the performance to be discovered on
set: "I want to have a sense of who a character is, and then I want to get
there and have it happen to me on camera." The aim, she said, is to
"try to get yourself in a position to let the emotion [happen] to you,
that you don't bring the emotion to it ... and when it happens, there's nothing
better or more exciting or more rewarding."
Personal life
Actor and stage director John Gould Rubin was Moore's first
husband, whom she met in 1984 and married two years later. They separated in
1993, and their divorce was finalized in August 1995. "I got married too
early and I really didn't want to be there", she has since explained. Moore
began a relationship with Bart Freundlich, her director on The Myth of Fingerprints, in 1996. The couple have a son, Caleb
(born December 1997) and a daughter, Liv (born April 2002). They wed in August
2003 and live in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New
York City. Moore has commented, "We have a very solid family life, and it
is the most satisfying thing I have ever done." She tries to keep her
family close when working and picks material that is practical for her as a
parent.
Moore is politically liberal and supported Barack Obama at
the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. She is a pro-choice activist and sits
on the board of advocates for Planned Parenthood. She is also a campaigner for
gay rights and gun control, and since 2008 she has been an Artist Ambassador
for Save the Children. Moore is an atheist; when asked on Inside the Actors
Studio what God might say to her upon arrival at heaven, she gave God's
response as, "Well I guess you were wrong, I do exist."
Moore has said she finds little value in the concept of
celebrity and is concerned with living a "normal" life. Upon meeting
her, the journalist Suzie Mackenzie described Moore as "the most
unostentatious of stars", and she attracts little gossip or tabloid
attention. She is humble about her profession, saying she is "just a
person with a job", and casual in her appearance. Known for maintaining a
natural image, Moore has spoken out against botox and plastic surgery.
Filmography
As of the start of 2015, Moore has appeared in 61 films,
four television movies, and four television series. Her most acclaimed films,
according to review-aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, include Short Cuts (1993), Children of Men (2006), The
Kids Are All Right (2010), Boogie
Nights (1997), Far from Heaven
(2002), Vanya on 42nd Street (1994), What Maisie Knew (2012), Still Alice (2014), Safe (1995), A Single Man
(2009), and Magnolia (2000). Her
films that have earned the most at the box office are The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 (2014), The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), Hannibal (2001), Non-Stop
(2014), The Hand That Rocks the Cradle
(1992), Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011), Nine Months (1995), The Forgotten (2004), The
Hours (2002), Evolution (2001),
and Carrie (2013).
Awards and
nominations
Moore has received five Academy Award nominations, eight
Golden Globe nominations, seven SAG nominations, and four BAFTA nominations.
From these, she has won an Academy Award, two Golden Globes, a BAFTA, and two
SAG Awards; she also has a Primetime Emmy and a Daytime Emmy. In addition, she
has been named Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival,
and Venice Film Festival – the fourth person, and second female, in history to
achieve this. Her recognized roles came in
As
the World Turns, Boogie Nights, An Ideal Husband, The End of the Affair,
Magnolia, Far From Heaven, The Hours, A Single Man, The Kids Are All Right,
Game Change, Maps to the Stars, and
Still
Alice. (Bron: Wikipedia)
