Born December 3, 1960 in Fort Bragg, North Carolina to an American military judge and colonel and his wife, a Scottish born social worker, Julianne Moore spent her early life in over two dozen locations around the world. A graduate of Boston University, she honed her acting skills on TV soap operas and movies in the 1980s, making her big screen debut in 1990. In supporting roles on screen until 1993 when she achieved stardom in Robert Altmanโs Oscar nominated ensemble drama, Short Cuts. She won the Boston Film Critics Award for Best Actress for 1994โs Vanya on 42nd Street and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for 1995โs Safe.
Mooreโs portrayal of motherly porn star Amber Waves in Paul Thomas Andersonโs Boogie Nights earned her numerous awards and nominations including her first Oscar nod. She won major awards recognition two years later for her performances in three different films, Altmanโs Cookieโs Fortune, Andersonโs Magnolia and Neil Jordanโs The End of the Affair which brought her a second Oscar nomination, her first in the lead category.
Ever busy, her 2001 projects included succeeding Jodie Foster as Clarice in Ridley Scottโs Hannibal, the sequel to the Oscar winning The Silence of the Lambs and starring opposite Kevin Spacey in Lasse Hallstromโs The Shipping News. She would receive the rare distinction of being Oscar nominated for two performances for her 2002 work, earning a Best Actress nod for Todd Haynesโ Far from Heaven and a Best Supporting Actress nod for Stephen Daldryโs The Hours. She received a Satellite nomination for 2005โs The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio, but failed to receive an expected Oscar nod for the film. She was star billed in 2006โs Children of Men, but the size of her role did not live up to her billing.
In 2007, Moore starred in the infamous real life murder drama, Savage Grace in which she has sex with her son, played by Eddie Redmayne in one of his first major roles. She also had a major role in that yearโs all-star cast Iโm Not There, the only one of the filmโs major stars who did not play Bob Dylan. 2009 brought her A Single Man for which she received a Golden Globe nomination but no Oscar nod. She and Annette Bening were nominated for Golden Globes and Baftas for 2010โs The Kids Are All Right but Oscar was only interested in Bening. 2011โs Crazy, Stupid Love brought box office success but only co-star Ryan Gosling ended up with a Golden Globe nomination and nothing else. She followed that with a career high performance as Sarah Palin in the TV movie Game Change for which she won numerous awards including a Golden Globe and an Emmy.
Mooreโs 2014 output looked like she would again go unheralded by Oscar as both her Cannes Film Festival award winning Maps to the Stars and the more recently completed Still Alice were pushed to 2015, but last minute Oscar qualifying runs for both in Los Angeles and New York in December of 2014 resulted in her sixth Oscar nomination for the latter. With multiple precursor wins, Mooreโs expected triumph at the 87th Academy Awards paid off with her finally winning the Oscar on her fifth nomination, her first in twelve years.
Julianne Moore has been happily married to writer-director Bart Freundlich since 2003 with whom she has two children. She remains in high demand at 54.
ESSENTIAL FILMS
THE END OF THE AFFAIR (1999), directed by Neil Jordan
Graham Greeneโs classic love story set in London during World War II and its immediate aftermath was previously filmed in 1955 with that other redheaded Scottish actress, Deborah Kerr who was then at the height of her acting prowess. Aside from Kerr, however, that version is nowhere near as good as this one in which Moore, Ralph Fiennes, Stephen Rea, Ian Hart and Sam Bould all deliver powerhouse performances.
Moore is the adulterous wife who prays for a miracle to save her injured and feared dead lover, promising to give him up if he lives. He lives and she leaves him without explanation. Two years later the affair is briefly rekindled. Fiennes as the lover, Rea as the husband, Hart as a private investigator and Bould as his son all deliver memorable performances, but Moore with her porcelain beauty and flawless accent is ethereal.
FAR FROM HEAVEN (2002), directed by Todd Haynes
Haynesโ film is a tribute to both Douglas Sirkโs 1956 film, All That Heaven Allows and Rainer Werner Fassbinderโs 1974 quasi-remake, Ali: Far Eats the Soul. In the original, widowed Jane Wyman falls for younger man Rock Hudson to the consternation of her spoiled college age kids. In Ali, Fassbinder adds interracial prejudice and widens the age difference between the lovers. In Haynesโ picture postcard Connecticut, age disparity is eliminated and Mooreโs character is not widowed but separated from her husband who has discovered his latent homosexuality. Her new love is a black man.
Moore is luminous from start to finish and as usual, brings out the best in her co-stars. Neither Dennis Quaid as the husband nor Dennis Haysbert has ever had a better screen role.
THE HOURS (2002), directed by Stephen Daldry
Moore achieved the rare distinction of earning Oscar nominations for two performances in the same year. She was nominated for Best Actress for Far from Heaven and Best Supporting Actress for The Hours in which she anchors one of three segments related to Virginia Woolfโs Mrs. Dalloway, all three segments dealing with suicide.
Mooreโs co-star Nicole Kidman won the Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Woolf in the first segment. Meryl Streep, who anchors the third segment, received an Oscar nomination for her other 2002 film, Adaptation. Moore has the filmโs most difficult role as a woman who is outwardly the perfect wife and mother, but inwardly very depressed. Se is also the only one of the three to appear in a second segment. Sheโs an older version of herself in Streepโs segment, a role originally filmed with Betsy Blair but scrapped because the director was unhappy with Blairโs take on the role. Re-shot with Moore in old-age makeup, you hardly know itโs the same woman for a moment.
THE PRIZE WINNER OF DEFIANCE, OHIO (2005), directed by Jane Anderson
Dreamworks allegedly spent so much money promoting the remake of War of the Worlds that they didnโt have enough left over to promote this beautifully done biography of Evelyn Ryan, a flyover country housewife who supports her alcoholic husband and raises ten kids on the money she wins from jingle-writing contests and other mail-in contests. The film, based on a true story, is a beautifully realized modern equivalent of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn with Moore at her radiant best. Woody Harrelson is also perfectly cast as her husband.
Mooreโs failure to receive an Oscar nomination for her richly observed performance was an outage considering the extremely weak competition. Itโs superior in every way to that of Reese Witherspoon who won for playing June Carter Cash in Walk the Line.
STILL ALICE (2014), directed by Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland
Youโd have to go back thirty years to the 1985 TV movie, Do You Remember Love with Joanne Woodward and Richard Kiley to find an American film about Alzheimerโs Disease as good as this one. The only other film of comparable accomplishment was the Canadian film, with Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent focused more on the husband of the woman grappling with the disease.
Moore is superb in the role that finally won her an Oscar on her fifth nomination playing a linguistics professor who is tested for the disease after forgetting words. The film follows her rapid decline as her husband (Alec Baldwin) and three grown children (Kate Bosworth, Hunter Parrish, Kristen Stewart) lend what support they can while dealing with their own problems.
JULIANNE MOORE AND OSCAR
- Boogie Nights (1997) โ nominated Best Supporting Actress
- The End of the Affair (1999) โ nominated Best Actress
- Far from Heaven (2002) โ nominated Best Actress
- The Hours (2002) โ nominated Best Supporting Actress
- Still Alice (2014) โ Oscar – Best Actress
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