The New Yorker Radio Hour
Julianne Moore Explains What She Needs in a Film Director
Tue, 31 Dec 2024
Introducing Julianne Moore at the New Yorker Festival, in October, the staff writer Michael Schulman recited “only a partial list” of the directors Moore has worked with, including Robert Altman, Louis Malle, Todd Haynes, Paul Thomas Anderson, Lisa Cholodenko, Steven Spielberg, the Coen brothers, and many more legends. It seems almost obvious that Moore co-stars (alongside Tilda Swinton) in Pedro Almodóvar’s first feature in English, “The Room Next Door,” which comes out in December. Moore has a particular knack with unremarkable characters. “I don't know that I seek out things in the domestic space, but I do think I’m really drawn to ordinary lives,” she tells Schulman. “I’ve never been, like, I’m going to play an astronaut next. . . . A lot of these stories [are] domestic stories—well, that’s the biggest story of our lives, right? How do we live? Who do we love? . . . Those are the things that we all know about.”New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts.
Chapter 1: Who is Julianne Moore and why is she a legend?
Whether she's playing a 1950s housewife, a 1970s adult film star, a linguistics professor losing her memory, or Sarah Palin... She brings depth and humor and tragedy and incandescence to all her roles. And she's the author of the bestselling children's book, Freckleface Strawberry.
Staff writer Michael Shulman sat down last month with Julianne Moore. The following is only a partial list of the directors she's worked with.
Robert Altman, Louis Malle, Todd Haynes, Paul Thomas Anderson, Lisa Cholodenko, Steven Spielberg, The Coen Brothers, Ridley Scott, Stephen Daldry, Alfonso Cuaron, Rebecca Miller, Jesse Eisenberg, Tom Ford, Kimberly Pierce, David Cronenberg, Julie Taymor, and George Clooney. And she's just added to the list, Pedro Almodovar.
Chapter 2: What directors has Julianne Moore worked with?
In his first English language feature, The Room Next Door, co-starring Tilda Swinton.
Have you decided where we're going? That's why I called.
It's near Woodstock. It's about two hours from the city.
It looks fantastic. It's a bit expensive, but hey, the occasion calls for it.
Please welcome the gigantically gifted Julianne Moore. My God, I'm so flattered.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
I mean, let's start with that list because, my God, I mean, that's just an incredible roster of people. And I'm curious, when you choose roles, how important is the idea of wanting to work with someone or wanting to work with someone again? Yeah. versus like a particular character or the script? Do you actually have like, do you have like a life list, like a birder or something of directors? Well,
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Chapter 3: How does Julianne Moore choose her film roles?
You know, first of all, we don't have as much choice as you think. That's what's sort of interesting. And as you're going through that list, I thought, wow, I never, ever thought in my life I would work with that roster of talent. And my film career didn't even start until I was 30. And before then, I was really working in television. I started on a soap opera and I did lots of, yeah, right on.
It's here for As the World Turns. But I just got the jobs I got, right? And so I came to New York thinking that I was going to work in the theater. And then I also thought that somehow I could work at a regional theater for the rest of my life, which is difficult to do.
And ended up mostly doing television stuff and auditioning for Broadway things and not getting it and feeling frustrated by not getting any film work. And then... Then when the independent film world started in the early 90s, suddenly my life changed. And one of the people who changed it was Robert Altman.
Right, shortcuts.
Right, because he saw me in a production of Uncle Vanya that became Vanya on 42nd Street, which Louis Moll filmed. And at that same time, I also auditioned for Todd Haynes for Safe. So those three movies came out at the same time in the early 90s and completely changed my life completely. Um, and it was sort of, it wasn't intentional, you know, that I didn't seek these people out.
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Chapter 4: What is Julianne Moore's approach to working with directors?
It was just this weird confluence of opportunity. Um, and I, and I suddenly had this film career.
Yes. However, I mean, when I look at this list of directors and I've been throwing myself a Julianne Moore film festival over the last couple of weeks, which I've really enjoyed, um, What's striking is how these are all very visionary, auteur kind of directors that you've worked with. They're all very different. And yet you're able to really... find, you know, fit yourself into all of them.
And I can only imagine that, you know, an Altman film is completely different than being in at least a Cholodenko film or, you know, a Cronenberg film. How do you figure out sort of what that means for each director? Are you like going back and watching their previous movies? Are you like just sitting down discussing with them? Like, what is the style that you want? Or is it like more intuitive?
Yeah.
That's an interesting question. I think that, I mean, the most important thing about a director is point of view. And when people ask me, they'll say, why is Ridley Scott so special or why is so-and-so different from this other director? And I'm like, I don't really see the differences. What I see is that through line of point of view. All of them have a really distinct way of telling a story.
And a lot of them write their own scripts as well. That's something I've been very drawn to, people who are also writers. And I can sort of tell in the language, especially with first-time directors, what they're trying to communicate. So that's really important to me, the language. And And then you see it in the frame.
You know, it's like I could, Todd and I, when we did Safe, we didn't have a lot of time. We didn't have any time to really talk. We had a little bit of rehearsal. I felt like the language was very specific, but then I would always ask him to show me the frame before we, you know, and he had a lot of storyboards too. And then I could kind of see it.
from the way he was looking at it in combination with the language where I was supposed to be in it, how he saw me. I was like always searching for, once again, his point of view. Where does my character exist in this narrative?
Okay, see, but this is totally fascinating to me because a lot of the actors who I have spoken to absolutely will not watch themselves on playback because I mean, someone like Adam Driver, for instance, I profiled him. He won't ever watch anything he's in. And if you try to make him, he'll run to the bathroom and throw up. How does that not make you get inside your own head, self-conscious?
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Chapter 5: Why does Julianne Moore prefer playback to watching dailies?
Well, exactly. So I'm not, I don't think I mean like you have to be strict with your shots so that they have to be tight or something. Um, But Altman, first of all, he was a person that made me want to be a film actor because I just I had never I made it kind of all the way to college without ever having seen an Altman film.
I missed everything in the 70s and it wasn't until the 80s when I got to college and I saw three women in a revival house dancing. that it kind of woke me up. And I'd never seen that kind of acting before. And I'd never seen that point of view before. And I'd never seen this kind of naturalism to it. And I was like, that's what I want to do. I want to work with him. I want to do that kind of work.
So he had such a generous kind of viewpoint of humanity. He so loved individuality and flaws and just everything that was sort of... like weird about us. And he put all these people in a room and everyone thought it was chaos, but it was very, even with the improv, you might say something and then the next one he'd go, okay, now you say that and you say what you said before.
So it was like, there was this incredible shape to it with the way he was shooting it and with language, you know, and we were all in this pen that he kind of controlled, but you knew where the boundaries were. You know, he always created a boundary.
Right, right. So what about Amadovar? I mean, what struck you about just, he obviously talked about someone with a point of view, he's a very strong one. What struck you about just his process of directing?
What I didn't understand about Pedro was that everything in his movies is so intensely personal that, you know, I think I thought, because I'm an American too, when I first saw like Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, I was like, oh, Spain must be like that. I know. I know. And then I sort of learned, I was like, no, that's not Bane.
You know, but when we were there and Tilda and I walked into his apartment, I saw every single one of his movies in his apartment, like all of the stuff that
the red kitchen and all the little figures and the stacks of books and dvds and their opera was on the lights were low and i was like so overstimulated i was like i don't think i can concentrate but that's his world and then after working with him and meeting like his producers and other people on the crew i realized i'd seen them all in his movies too like even the people are in there
So everything that he does is drawn from his life. You know, he would bring jewelry to the set that you say, you know, if anybody wants to wear this pin, you put that on today and be like, OK, you know, but all of it. That's his that's his language. That's his imagination. You are you're in it. And I think he also has seen everything in his head.
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Chapter 6: What makes Pedro Almodóvar's directing style unique?
To act or for any creative endeavor, I think, I mean, I think there's pleasure involved. You know, why are we attracted to it? We don't have to do this. But like you start doing it and you're like, I like this. It feels good. There's pleasure in it.
Well, so as you mentioned earlier, you know, your first kind of big break was on As the World Turns. Yeah. I mean, my impression of being on a soap is that it's like you get in there, you have to cover like 30 pages in a day and it's just like, go, go, go, go, go. Is that what the process is like? It's really, really fast.
And you learn to be prepared, know your lines, know what you want to accomplish and then try to, you know, and then, and that's, I actually would watch myself on television to see how bad I was. Yeah. And it helped.
That was like an early version of watching yourself in the playback.
Yeah, it kind of was. Because I would be like, I was stiff. I had a terrible voice. I sort of had a voice like this on television. I didn't know how to relax. I didn't know how to do it. So it was a really way to learn.
Kevin, I told you to go away.
I told you I would stay in.
I don't want you here. I don't want to see you again.
Is that why you kissed me yesterday? Why are you doing this to me?
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Chapter 7: How does Julianne Moore balance structure and freedom in acting?
Find out on How to Cure What Ails You from Radiolab. Listen where you get podcasts or on the WNYC app.
Todd Haynes, who you've made, I believe, five movies with at this point, of course. There's Safe, Far From Heaven, most recently May, December. But we have a clip from Safe. Basically, you're playing Carol White, who is a woman living in L.A. in the 80s. And she's like redecorating her living room and stuff.
And suddenly she starts experiencing these bouts of mysterious affliction, like a coughing fit or a runny nose. And she's not sure what's happening with her. This is a scene with her and her psychiatrist. So let's take a look. Do you work?
No, I'm a house... I'm a homemaker. I'm working on some designs for our house, though, in my spare time.
And you have one child?
My husband's little boy. He's not my son. He's my stepson, Rory. He's 10.
How long have you been feeling unwell?
About two months, three. I've been under a lot of stress lately. And then my friend Linda and I, she's probably my best friend. She lives down the... Anyway, we started this fruit diet together. I think that sort of set it off.
Poor old Carol.
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