Archetypal Hollywood star Julianne Moore opens
up about family, flexibility and what she hopes will
become of Donald Trump. By James MottramJ
ulianne Moore gazes around her
hotel suite, overlooking the sparkling
Adriatic Sea, soaking it all in. Just a
few days ago she and her husband,
filmmaker Bart Freundlich, were at
their beach house in Montauk before
returning to their townhouse in New York’s
West Village. Summer holiday over, it’s back to
work. “It’s always a rude awakening,” she says.
All she has left is the faintest of tans. “I was just
in the bathtub looking at how freckly my legs are
... I’ve spent the past month in shorts.”
Now Hollywood’s most personable redhead
is in Venice, where her new movie, the George
Clooney-directed Suburbicon, has just been
unveiled to considerable acclaim. Though it’s
just after 11am, the shorts are gone and Moore is
dressed for cocktail hour in a sleeveless black
Prada dress (“Italian for Italy!”) with feather
trim. The shape-shifting is not lost on her. She
glances at her publicist Stephen Huvane, sitting
behind her. “Stephen posted a picture of a boat
on Instagram yesterday and it said: ‘It never
gets old.’ And it’s true: it never gets old. The
opportunities we have, the way we get to travel,
the people we get to meet and the dresses we get
to wear ... it is an opportunity that I’m grateful
for.” Another gesture to the finery around her. “I
try not to take any of this for granted.”
Her dress is a bit less showy than the feath-
ery pink, red and yellow Calvin Klein one she
wore to the Met Gala this year, but she carries it
off with the sort of casual elegance you might
expect from an actress who has been walkingred carpets for the past 20-odd years. Her pale
skin touched with only a hint of make-up, her
natural beauty shines through. It’s hard to
believe she turns 57 in December.
Moore’s career is enviable: Best Actress
prizes in Venice, Berlin and Cannes, four Oscar
nominations and one win for her portrayal of an
Alzheimer’s sufferer in Still Alice and even a
children’s book series, Freckleface Strawberry.
But work isn’t what drives her. “The thing I am
proudest [of] in my life is my family,” she says.
“Bart and I have been together for 21 years. Our
kids are healthy and happy and they’re really
nice. They do well in school. They have a lot of
friends, they have a lot of interests. The four
of us spend a lot of time together. I think, as a
parent, that’s all you can do. Make your family
a priority and spend time with each other.”
Moore met Freundlich on the set of his 1997
film, The Myth of Fingerprints. “We were in a
different place when we met,” she says. Moore
had just come out of a nine-year marriage to
actor John Gould Rubin. In the past, she admit-
ted that she had a hard time dealing with her
divorce. “I was lonely,” she told The Hollywood
Reporter. “I don’t think I felt happy.” Visiting a
therapist, she realised she needed to tend to her
personal life as much as her career. Then she
met her husband-to-be, who would direct her
again in two of her lesser-known films, World
Traveler and Trust the Man.
Seemingly effortlessly, Moore meshes her
two worlds: wife and mother, and Hollywood
star. Rather like her Instagram account – shots
of her kids and dogs alongside pictures of her
with Kristen Stewart and Karl Lagerfeld – there
seems to be no division. She recalls being in
Venice for 2002’s Far from Heaven, just four
months after Liv, her daughter, was born. “We
brought her to Italy ... so we’d get on a boatORE
POWER
Archetypal Hollywood star
Julianne Moore opens up about family,
flexibility and what she hopes will become
of Donald Trump. By James Mottram
PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID ROEMER/TRUNKARCHIVE.COM/SNAPPER MEDIA.