Julianne Moore: 'My 50s are my most important years'
It’s not just movie roles keeping JULIANNE MOORE busy. From books to boiled eggs, red carpets to beauty campaigns, it’s all in a day’s work for the multitasking actress, as Bella Blissett discovers
'My life is a constant juggling act. I don't think any parent completely avoids the guilt trap'
She may hail from the city known for its cocktail bars, buzzy restaurant scene and post-gym juice cleanses, but if there’s one thing this New Yorker can’t resist, it’s a distinctly British Mr Whippy ice cream. With a flake on top.
As a L’Oréal Paris spokesmodel and the face of its Age Perfect Cell Renew skincare range, 52-year-old Julianne has smooth, porcelain skin, glossy auburn hair and the head-to-toe smattering of freckles she inherited from her late Scottish mother. She’s based in Manhattan but, feeling the need to reconnect with her roots, took up dual US and UK citizenship two years ago. Fascinated by the contrast between American and European culture, she loves nothing more than a trip across the Atlantic.
Which is why, when we meet on the first morning of the Cannes Film Festival at celebrity hotspot Hotel Martinez, she’s distinctly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. ‘I love spending time in Europe. The United States is so isolated as a continent so it’s always fascinating to experience the contrast in culture over here,’ she says. Soon she’ll begin the merry-go-round of interviews and photo shoots as she represents L’Oréal Paris, official make-up partner of the film festival.
Wearing a sleeveless black Dior dress, she’s smoky-eyed and sporting a new, honey-hued Rosewood Beige lipstick she has chosen to form part of L’Oréal Paris’s Color Riche Collection Privée – a range of lip colours chosen by its spokesmodels to inspire women of all skin tones to find their perfect nude (available nationwide from the end of August).
More delicate than she appeared as gung-ho Dr Sarah Harding in 1997 blockbuster The Lost World: Jurassic Park – or indeed as the gay, garden-loving Jules Allgood in 2010 comedy The Kids Are All Right – Julianne is super-slim, poised and doesn’t look a day over 40. So what’s her secret?
‘I very much see it as a privilege to be able to age – and one that not everyone is lucky enough to have,’ she says. ‘It’s not something I would have understood when I was younger but, by just being who I am, rather than wishing I was frozen in time at one particular age, I actually feel happier with myself now than I did in my 20s.’
Julianne at the premiere of The Great Gatsby at the Cannes Film Festival in May
Certainly, my question about whether she’s had Botox is met with a decisive frown – proving that the all-but-line-free forehead can be attributed to eating ‘plenty of fish and salad’, good skin cream – and Scottish genes.
Yet that’s not all that sets Julianne apart from the cookie-cutter Hollywood stars who surrender to the needle to satisfy the industry determination to typecast them time and time again. From the nubile porn star Amber Waves in 1997 hit Boogie Nights, to an incestuous mother in Savage Grace, a dipsomaniac divorcée in Tom Ford’s A Single Man and the uncompromising Sarah Palin in Game Change, Julianne has defiantly refused to be pigeonholed, preferring to choose diverse roles that explore the subtly shifting dynamics of human relationships – however controversial.
If 20 years in the film business has earned her four Oscar nominations (plus a Golden Globe and Primetime Emmy for her role in Game Change), it has also left her with a reputation for being a bit of a risk-taker.
‘People often say I’m brave. But being brave is doing something you’re afraid of,’ she says. ‘Acting is just something I love doing. Now skiing – that’s scary!’ So while her husband of ten years, 43-year-old director Bart Freundlich, and their children Caleb, 15, and Liv, 11, go off-piste, she dedicates some time to her ‘other’ career: as a New York Times bestselling author of three Freckleface Strawberry children’s books, about a girl who’s teased for her red hair and freckles. No prizes for guessing who they’re based on.
For 'Hollywood's best-known redhead' those 'geeky' childhood freckles don't seem so significant any more...
‘As a little girl, I was small, skinny, very freckly and I had glasses. Hairdos weren’t really done in American schools but my mother was European and thought it was totally normal to send me off in pigtails each day. I just became the kid with the crazy pigtails!’ she laughs. It’s one of many childhood anecdotes that she has poured into her fourth book, My Mom is a Foreigner, But Not to Me (to be published by Chronicle in September), which just happens to have a picture of a little boy eating a Mr Whippy on the cover, and is about growing up with a mother from another culture.
Julianne was born in 1960 in North Carolina. During her childhood, her American father Peter’s job as a military judge took the family – including her Scottish mother Anne (a psychiatric social worker) and younger brother and sister – to more than 20 locations. A stint in Frankfurt at the age 16 inspired her love of Europe before she went on to study acting at Boston University. From there, she landed a role in a soap opera called As the World Turns, then broke into films in the early 90s with roles in The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, The Fugitive and Robert Altman’s comedy-drama Short Cuts.
Fast forward to 2013 and, while the likes of Jessica Chastain and Christina Hendricks may be hot on her heels, Julianne’s consistently successful career means she’s now referred to as ‘Hollywood’s best-known redhead’ – and suddenly those ‘geeky’ freckles don’t seem so significant any more. Which is exactly the message she hopes to relay to young girls. ‘We all have things about ourselves that we don’t like – whether it be sticky-out ears or thinking we’re too short or too tall. In a lot of stories, these magically disappear and the girl becomes a swan. I’m trying to put the things that loom large in childhood into perspective. Those things might not go away, but they become less important when you have other things to think about.’
Which Julianne most certainly does. International movie star she may be, but just like women all over the world, she considers her children her main priority. Not for her an army of nannies, housekeepers and bodyguards. Beneath the spidery lashes and blow-dried hair, she’s the kind of woman who’d happily stop for a chat at the school gates.
Julianne filming a TV advert for L'Oréal Paris
‘I tend not to apply make-up when I’m back home, just because I have to wear so much on set,’ she says. Having said that, being a face of L’Oréal Paris means that she owns a lot of make-up to experiment with for special occasions. On an average day, she’ll sweep the Glam Bronze bronzer on to her cheeks and define her eyes with the Volume Million Lashes mascara, leaving 11-year-old Liv to rifle through her mother’s supersized make-up bags. ‘Making over her friends with my make-up is Liv’s favourite thing right now. That and trying on the red kilt my mother gave me,’ she laughs, slipping into an accent straight out of the Highlands.
A typical teenager, 15-year-old Caleb sleeps until midday on weekends then takes charge of the music in their five-storey Manhattan brownstone. ‘The Black Keys are his favourite right now. He’s also a guitar player and the front man for his own band,’ she says with maternal pride.
‘I’ll get up early with our two dogs, Millie and Cherry, then make buckwheat waffles or cinnamon toast for everyone’s breakfast.’ So is she a good cook? ‘Let’s just say breakfast is my speciality,’ she says, smiling, while refusing to divulge the details of any kitchen disasters. ‘It’s a bit of an in-joke between my husband and me that my signature dish in the kitchen would be a hard-boiled egg. Mine are just perfect!’
How she manages to squeeze in the odd yoga session, catch up with industry pals (the Spielbergs, Tom Ford, Woody Allen and Emma Stone, a fellow redhead who played her daughter in 2011 comedy Crazy, Stupid, Love), create Freckleface Strawberry app games (available on iTunes) and support her own social and political beliefs (she sits on the Planned Parenthood board of advocates, and actively supports same-sex marriage) is anyone’s guess.
Rule number one is that she never leaves home without her phone. She’ll also squeeze in script reading or book writing on long-haul flights and tries to film only during school holidays so she can take her children with her. So while the rest of us will be taking our cinema seats to see her play the ex of Steve Coogan’s character in What Maisie Knew – the story of a young girl caught in the middle of her parents’ split – next month, Julianne and the children will be in Toronto where she will be filming Maps to the Stars, a 2014 release about the celebrity-obsessed culture of Los Angeles.
'It's a bit of an in-joke between my husband and me that my signature dish in the kitchen would bea hard-boiled egg. Mine are just perfect!'
‘My life is a constant juggling act and it’s challenging,’ she shrugs. ‘I don’t think any parent completely avoids the guilt trap or ever stops worrying about whether they’re doing everything perfectly. Part of being a parent means that it’s vital you get the wellbeing of your kids right, and there’s a high degree of difficulty in that.’
So the day after our meeting, her turn on the Cannes red carpet for The Great Gatsby premiere in another dazzling Dior dress complete, she returns home to perform her favourite role – as mother and wife. She loves interior decorating and is becoming quite the connoisseur in Scandinavian and mid-century French furniture. Books, of course, are a huge source of design inspiration, but then so is her guilty TV pleasure, Canadian programme Love It or List It (think Changing Rooms meets Location, Location, Location). Oh – and then there are her own masterpieces to consider.
‘This is going to sound really crazy but there’s this bunch of women who I’m friends with and one of them has been teaching us how to paint watercolours and decoupage eggs,’ she says sheepishly. ‘We’re like a bunch of retired ladies who meet for watercolour class on Fridays!’
World fame clearly hasn’t inhibited her ability to have a giggle – and remain astonishingly humble. ‘I think my 50s are proving to be a really important decade. I have the benefit of experience to know what makes me happy and know that time is precious. I have my children, my husband, my job – even the damn dogs – and I feel so fortunate.’
Yes, there will be more movies to film. Books to write. Who knows? Maybe even a stint on the West End stage one day, but only when her children have left home. So for now, surely the most accomplished woman in film is juggling motherhood, a career and – just like her favourite song by Bachman-Turner Overdrive says – ‘Takin’ Care of Business’.
L’Oréal Paris Age Perfect Cell Renew is available nationwide. For information visit lorealparis.co.uk
TELL US MOORE
• Favourite fashion designers? Dior and Tom Ford.
• Beauty mantras? I always take my make-up off at night, wear sunscreen every day and never leave home without a spritz of Kiehl’s Musk. Skincare is very important to me. After I wash my face with a gentle cleanser, I like to apply Age Perfect Cell Renew. It helps to give my skin a healthy, radiant-looking glow.
• Vice? Sweets. Lots of them!
• On your bedside table? A collection of stories by George Saunders.
• Favourite places? I love Paris and spent my 50th birthday there with my family. We also have a tiny beach house in Long Island.
• Secret talent? I’m a phenomenal cleaner. I read once that Ingrid Bergman was as well, so I guess I’m not alone among actresses in that ability!
