A Moment With Julianne Moore

Even dressed down in a checked shirt and corduroys, Julianne Moore radiates that certain glow that separates movie stars from the rest of us. What’s her secret? “I just finished bathing the dog,” she says, pushing damp, loose strands of red hair off her face, “and I ended up having to get into the shower with her.”

FOR THE RECORD:
Julianne Moore: An article in the Jan. 6 issue of The Envelope about actress Julianne Moore misspelled the title of her upcoming movie “The Kids Are All Right” as “The Kids Are Alright.” —

The 49-year-old actress makes a considerably more glamorous appearance in designer Tom Ford’s writing and directorial debut, the recently released “A Single Man.” Based on Christopher Isherwood’s novel and starring Colin Firth as George, a grief-stricken professor whose lover has been killed in a car accident, the movie -- which takes place in 1962 -- might be a claustrophobic dirge were it not for Moore’s turn as Charley, the decades-long best friend and neighbor. “Charley is the light in George’s life, and Julianne is the light of the film,” says Ford, who received a nomination for best director at the Venice Film Festival, where Firth won best actor. “Without her, the film would be unrelenting. Listen to her laugh in the film. That’s her laugh.”

Sitting in a New York City cafe near the home she shares with her husband, writer-director Bart Freundlich, and their two children, Caleb, 12, and Liv, 7, Moore laughs easily and often. Her lack of pretentiousness carries over into her professional life, which explains how a woman who has been nominated for four Oscars -- for 2002’s “Far From Heaven,” 2002’s “The Hours,” 1999’s “The End of the Affair” and 1997’s “Boogie Nights” --accepted a nascent director’s offer so quickly. “It was beautifully written, and Tom was very clear on what he wanted to accomplish, so I said, ‘I’d love to do it,’ ” Moore remembers. “Tom said, ‘Are you sure? That’s so fast!’ and I said, ‘It’s right there on the page, and it’s great.’ ”

Remembers Ford, who first met the actress when he designed a dress for her in 1998, “When I would tell her I wanted to direct someday, other people might have said, ‘What do you mean? You’re a fashion designer.’ But Julianne always said, ‘That’s great. I’m doing it, whatever it is.’ I wrote the part with her in mind.”

Filmed in just 21 days, “A Single Man” was a mostly solemn affair due to the subject matter, with the exception of the week Moore spent on the set. “Colin said after I left it wasn’t so much fun because they had to do all the hard stuff,” she says. But filming a scene in which the two characters share an intimate dinner, “we just laughed and laughed and laughed.”

After a year-plus run in which she also filmed the thriller “Shelter” with Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Atom Egoyan’s “Chloe” opposite Liam Neeson, Moore is refocusing on levity. Last summer, she costarred in Lisa Cholodenko’s comedy “The Kids Are All Right” with Mark Ruffalo and Annette Bening, and last month she began a guest-turn on “30 Rock.” “ Alec [Baldwin] was saying to me the other day, ‘Thanks for doing this,’ and I said, ‘Are you kidding me? To have a chance to work on something that’s so funny, where the bar keeps getting higher and higher every week?’ I’m so lucky.”

Moore won’t say how long she will be on the show -- “I don’t want to give anything away” -- and she has yet to decide on her next feature. “That I have a job at all these days is fortunate,” she says. When met with incredulity that someone of her stature would have to worry about that, she nods her head forcefully. “The entire world is in economic decline right now. I think you should never take employment for granted. Not any of us.”

But given her druthers, what does she dream of doing next? Moore shrugs. “It’s just as easy to do a bad independent movie as a bad commercial movie. Just because something’s independent doesn’t mean it’s good. And I’ve found that there’s just no such thing as any kind of a plan. I admire actors who can say, ‘This is what I’m doing to do,’ because it never worked out for me that way. As they say in preschool, ‘You get what you get, and don’t get upset.’ ”

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