Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing,
Speaker 1: My chance to talk with artists, policymakers and performers, to
Speaker 1: hear their stories. What inspired their creations, what decisions change
Speaker 1: their careers, what relationships influenced their work. My guest today
Speaker 1: is Julianne Moore. She's been nominated for an Academy Award
Speaker 1: four times for Boogie Nights, The End of the Affair,
Speaker 1: Far From Heaven, and The Hours. David Cronenberg, who directed
Speaker 1: her recently and Maps to the Stars, said More is
Speaker 1: her sweet, approachable self up until the moment the camera
Speaker 1: starts rolling. Then she becomes quote this character that you
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to spend any time with. Unquote. I have
Speaker 1: a flu I need cigarettes American spirit and I needed
Speaker 1: to pick up some prescriptions Avian Viking and say Alex
Speaker 1: it's a lot. More plays troubled women with a complicated
Speaker 1: mix of fierceness and vulnerability. I've had the pleasure of
Speaker 1: working with her on two different projects recently, Instill Alice
Speaker 1: More plays a linguistics professor diagnosed with Alzheimer's have good days,
Speaker 1: bad days, and on my good days, I can you
Speaker 1: know almost pass for a normal person on thirty Rock
Speaker 1: More was my character's high school crush, Boston native Nancy Donovan.
Speaker 1: I'll give you two words, four final offer. I'll wait,
Speaker 1: not forever, I'll try wicked hard. Julianne Moore's resume is
Speaker 1: an actor's wish list, with films in every genre horror, suspense, roman, ants,
Speaker 1: and comedy. Her acting range more than demonstrates that she's
Speaker 1: comfortable with change. That flexibility springs in part from her childhood.
Speaker 1: You'd be somewhere a year, maybe two, sometimes three, but Germany,
Speaker 1: we were in Panama, we were in Alabama. That worked
Speaker 1: for you. When you look back on it now, you
Speaker 1: know it's weird. Yeah, it's weirdness so good but not
Speaker 1: so bad either, you know. I mean you can't at
Speaker 1: least your father had a job exactly looking on the broadside.
Speaker 1: But it's true. Yeah, you know. So we're all kind
Speaker 1: of a collection of our experiences. And in the sense
Speaker 1: it really gave me something. I had an understanding of
Speaker 1: where I wanted to be. You in terms of what
Speaker 1: you do for a living, I think so you were
Speaker 1: never there long enough to connect to people. Did you
Speaker 1: get into some kind of I didn't get into any trouble.
Speaker 1: I was, I'm a very good girl, Like very good, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you only played bad people in movies. That's how you
Speaker 1: get that real if you're very sweet, good girl. But no,
Speaker 1: I think I think it's pretty common that actors come
Speaker 1: from an itinerant background, you know, creatures kids and IBM
Speaker 1: kids to military kids and um. For some reason, I
Speaker 1: think it teaches you that behavior is mutable, that behavior
Speaker 1: is not character, and once you figure that out, you're like, well,
Speaker 1: that means that I can behave anyway. I want that
Speaker 1: people are choosing to behave certain ways. Its speech is
Speaker 1: a choice, and movement is a choice, and accents are
Speaker 1: all choices. So it's an interesting thing to understand. I
Speaker 1: think at a very young age, I lived in the
Speaker 1: same town my entire life. Why are you an enctor them?
Speaker 1: That's interesting. It just had to do with having to
Speaker 1: entertain your stuff. I grew up in an era where
Speaker 1: there was no iPads, and there was no HBO, and
Speaker 1: there was no storytelling, and no one would let you
Speaker 1: watch television. We had a television, but it was when
Speaker 1: I grew up with the age of like Fantasy Island
Speaker 1: and Love Bow Show. They were okay, But my point
Speaker 1: being is that that idea of storytelling, playing voices, dialects,
Speaker 1: watching movies and remembering every line in the movie and
Speaker 1: acting out the movies. That kind of think that was
Speaker 1: really a big part of my cho That's interesting, but
Speaker 1: we didn't know I lived in the same time my
Speaker 1: whole life. Well, you know, it's interesting what you say
Speaker 1: about narrative. That's what it is for me too. I
Speaker 1: was a big reader, you know, and that's what I
Speaker 1: did from a really early age. And I was that
Speaker 1: kid who won the library contest every summer. You know,
Speaker 1: how many books can you read the library? And would
Speaker 1: say to me, you know, you can't take out twelve
Speaker 1: books at a time. And I was like, why not,
Speaker 1: why not? I'll read them. I've probably known so I
Speaker 1: would do. I just read them, read and read and read.
Speaker 1: And so with that sense of narrative, did you know
Speaker 1: then you were going to end up doing what you're doing. No,
Speaker 1: I thought it'd be a librarian, you did, Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I thought did that to change? You know? I thought
Speaker 1: I would be a doctor, a lawyer. I thought I
Speaker 1: would go to graduate school because my parents wanted that
Speaker 1: for us. Um I started doing plays after school in
Speaker 1: the sixth grade, because I couldn't do anything else. I
Speaker 1: tried out for drill team. I didn't make it. I
Speaker 1: didn't ever make cheerleading. I couldn't do sts. I just
Speaker 1: wasn't me, You're too good. And I couldn't dance. I
Speaker 1: couldn't do any of that stuff. So I went out
Speaker 1: for the play and I got parts in the place
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, this is fun, you know,
Speaker 1: And and that was my after school thing. And then
Speaker 1: I had a teacher when we moved to Germany so
Speaker 1: named Roby Taylor, who said, you know, you can do
Speaker 1: this for a living. And I was like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I didn't know anybody who did. I never been to
Speaker 1: a play except for high school players or community theater.
Speaker 1: The people in the movies and on TV didn't seem real.
Speaker 1: So she hand to me a copy of Dramatics magazine
Speaker 1: and said, you can choose a school. And I came
Speaker 1: home to my parents, and you know, it was seventeen,
Speaker 1: and said, I'm going to be an actor. Who would
Speaker 1: you tell? My mom and my dad at dinner, and
Speaker 1: my brother and my sister were there too. My mother said, oh, Julie,
Speaker 1: did everybody in the family look at you like that
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, oh no, Well, my sister was so supportive.
Speaker 1: She she's a year and three days younger than I am,
Speaker 1: and she what does she do. She's a lawyer, but
Speaker 1: she actually works in real estate. And my brother is
Speaker 1: in advertising. Yeah, he's a writer. He's a novelist and
Speaker 1: he works in advertising. But you know, my sister used
Speaker 1: to help me with all my lines and stuff. She'd
Speaker 1: run lines with me, and so she kind of always knew.
Speaker 1: I think that it was a possibility. One of your
Speaker 1: parents more supportive than the other. They were equally aghast
Speaker 1: and yet equally supportive because we lived was in a
Speaker 1: gas phase, and then they were like when you're a
Speaker 1: couple of Golden globes. We're living in Germany. And I
Speaker 1: filled out all these applications. These are the days too,
Speaker 1: when you filled out your own college application. So I
Speaker 1: applied it with the pen Yeah, Carnegie Mellon, Boston University,
Speaker 1: and by accident, the graduate program at m y U.
Speaker 1: Because I didn't read the paper, I guess. So my
Speaker 1: mother and I flew to New York City where I
Speaker 1: auditioned for those schools. And when I went to my
Speaker 1: U one they were like, how old are you? Eighteen?
Speaker 1: And they said, you know, this is a graduate program.
Speaker 1: We don't accept people out of high school. So they's
Speaker 1: try and then so I, you know, I just for
Speaker 1: the other two schools and got into both of them
Speaker 1: and chose Boston because I wanted to go to Boston
Speaker 1: rather than lived there before. So you don't have roots
Speaker 1: in an even though people think you don't. Think yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because I think you could be up and Up lounge
Speaker 1: in Kemall Square. That's where you worked when you with school.
Speaker 1: You went to be you did four years for solid years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the program. It was good. You know, it
Speaker 1: was an undergraduate theater program. When you were done with it,
Speaker 1: did you feel that you that it helped you that
Speaker 1: you needed or could you have bypassed those four years,
Speaker 1: you know, and still ended up where you are. That's
Speaker 1: a very interesting question because I was for some reason
Speaker 1: thinking about a friend of mine who didn't go to
Speaker 1: drama school in the car on the way here, and
Speaker 1: I wonder what it was like for her, because she
Speaker 1: hasn't seemed to need it, And there are a lot
Speaker 1: of things that I didn't drama school that I think
Speaker 1: I didn't need either. But then in retrospect, I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's helpful. Did you go drama school? Where'd
Speaker 1: you go? And you? Okay? Did you go straight on
Speaker 1: to search for tomorrow? Then the doctors? I can't believe
Speaker 1: you just said that. I can't believe why because I
Speaker 1: have in front of me. I wasn't going to go there.
Speaker 1: Right off that window. You were Fanny and Sabrina Hughes. Franny,
Speaker 1: not Fanny, Franny and Sabrina. Someone else was Fanny Hughes.
Speaker 1: You were Franny, Yeah, exactly, I know. I mean, couldn't
Speaker 1: have been Fancy or for dirt was Fanny's you were?
Speaker 1: You were Fanny and Sabini used on World Turns and
Speaker 1: before that you did Edge. I did Edge? Were you
Speaker 1: on Edge? See if you're on soaps only when you're
Speaker 1: on soap? Can you say Edge, World Turns days days?
Speaker 1: That's so funny because I was on Edge when they
Speaker 1: were on East forty nine Street and that really really
Speaker 1: tiny studio. Remember now, Rachel Ray shoots there really are gone.
Speaker 1: I know they're gone, They're gone gone. This is a
Speaker 1: couple of his four soaps left, and I worked with people.
Speaker 1: The guy that played my dad, Um Don Hastings was
Speaker 1: he was from there. He started that show. He started
Speaker 1: on that show two months before I was born, so
Speaker 1: he had been on that show my entire lifetime when
Speaker 1: I got on, and he when the show was gone,
Speaker 1: he was still on it too. He was the most
Speaker 1: wonderful guy. So funny. But do you feel in some ways?
Speaker 1: I mean, in some ways, I don't want to be exaggerate,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't doing a soap like some of the
Speaker 1: most honest work you've ever done. Absolutely, because you have
Speaker 1: nothing to help you. No. No, there's no dialogue. I
Speaker 1: mean the dialogue is so rough, so basic. All you're
Speaker 1: doing is is establishing story. I used to do what
Speaker 1: they called emotional I called it in any emotional applicate,
Speaker 1: where if I had to say something that was really
Speaker 1: just plot oriented, I try to like cry on top
Speaker 1: of it or laugh on top of it or anything
Speaker 1: just to make it mean something. Right, Yeah, because it's
Speaker 1: all exposition. Well, I read somewhere where you said that
Speaker 1: doing the soap gave you experience and confidence discipline. It
Speaker 1: was disciplined and confidence because I loved that. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: no one, no one has time to help you. You know,
Speaker 1: the directors are working really fast, the writers are working fast,
Speaker 1: the other actors are working really quickly. You're just on
Speaker 1: your own. Remember Marissa Tommy, she played my best friend Marcy.
Speaker 1: She said, we got into the we got into the
Speaker 1: elevator and she looked at me and she goes, Remember
Speaker 1: l is for lunch because that was where the lobby was,
Speaker 1: and so in that cafeteria and that was like the
Speaker 1: best piece of rise because it was remember hell is
Speaker 1: for Lunch. And then we did a scene together and
Speaker 1: it went by so quickly. You know, we didn't want
Speaker 1: wanted the have takes sort and because you feel terrible,
Speaker 1: don't you, I said, She goes, it happens all the time.
Speaker 1: You'll get used to it. Yeah, you're gonna walk ahead
Speaker 1: from the crappy two out of five days of the week.
Speaker 1: I just remember when I did that show. You had
Speaker 1: to show up on time. I had to know your dialogue,
Speaker 1: and no matter how excruciating it was, if you didn't,
Speaker 1: they fired you. You had to be there at seven
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning and rehearse you were on camera.
Speaker 1: I would have sometimes thirty pages of dialogue a day
Speaker 1: for three it was like, you know, for three years.
Speaker 1: So it was like a boom boom boom, boom boom,
Speaker 1: and then you finished maybe seven thirty eight nine. If
Speaker 1: you go late, you know, it was how long did
Speaker 1: you do this? So for the World Turns was your contract?
Speaker 1: By contract? It was a three year contract for three years.
Speaker 1: CBS they gave they would do three years, the ABC
Speaker 1: once would do two years and stuff. But they never
Speaker 1: gave me an option, although they had the option to
Speaker 1: fire me at any time. And when you finished what
Speaker 1: you you? I went to the Guthrie Theater actually and
Speaker 1: I did Hamlet with Hamlet. I saw you. You did
Speaker 1: not I saw you. Come on. I want to know something? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can tell you right now. I did Loot with
Speaker 1: him on Broadway in six You did it with Jelco.
Speaker 1: You did the show the following year, in eight seven seven.
Speaker 1: I flew to Minneapolis to see I saw you do.
Speaker 1: I saw you do Hamlet at the at the Gut
Speaker 1: three Well. I was in the Hamlet. I was a feeling.
Speaker 1: I saw you. What did you think? I thought it
Speaker 1: was fantastic. Do you'll remember me? Do you want to
Speaker 1: know something? I do? And gelko Evonick you were very young,
Speaker 1: you were child and Shelkovoni. He was probably one of
Speaker 1: the best Hamlets I've ever seen because you didn't have
Speaker 1: to push. He seems like a very dark, kind of complicted,
Speaker 1: seemed like a very young man, you know. I think
Speaker 1: that was interesting that both Jelco and I are very
Speaker 1: very small, very slender and tiny, and we looked like
Speaker 1: teenagers kind of, you know. So who directed Garland Wright,
Speaker 1: who I adored. He passed away, but boy, I loved Garland.
Speaker 1: He was great. It was a really interesting production. Was
Speaker 1: the thing that people strained for when they play Hammot
Speaker 1: that he has and she did the Gut three and
Speaker 1: then and I went to the I'm going to Actors
Speaker 1: Theater of Louisville and did some plays there and Arthur
Speaker 1: Coppet play and and then there wasn't an idea that
Speaker 1: you want to kind of strap yourself into the rocket
Speaker 1: sled here and get going l A TV movies now now,
Speaker 1: I mean I just did also worked, I worked at
Speaker 1: the Public, I did some place, and then I met
Speaker 1: Andrei Gregory and I did Vanya and all along though
Speaker 1: I was I was auditioning for stuff, and I got
Speaker 1: TV movies and things, and but it wasn't until I
Speaker 1: was twenty nine that I got my first movie, which
Speaker 1: was an HBO movie called Cast a Deadly Spell. And
Speaker 1: then I did Hand the Rucks the Cradle, and then
Speaker 1: I did Shortcuts, and I did Safe and then and
Speaker 1: then my movie career didn't really start happening till I
Speaker 1: was thirty, So for it was just theater. Shortcuts was
Speaker 1: the biggest break you out at that time. Well, what
Speaker 1: happened was I did Shortcuts, Bonnie and forty seconds Reason Safe.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of the beginning of the independent theater movement,
Speaker 1: if you will. And they all came out within the
Speaker 1: same year. And I went from being an actress who
Speaker 1: had no profile at all in film, none because I
Speaker 1: couldn't I couldn't get arrested doing movies. I mean, I
Speaker 1: would never get cast. I don't know, you know, honestly,
Speaker 1: I would just didn't get him. I didn't get him.
Speaker 1: And in the eighties I can remember, I mean, I
Speaker 1: just for a ton of things. Remember audition for the
Speaker 1: lists of merchant Ivory movies. I always wanted to get
Speaker 1: one of those because those were such a big deal.
Speaker 1: I would action for big comedies. I just didn't get them.
Speaker 1: And I was like, you know, I remember the same thing.
Speaker 1: You'd be sitting there going, man, I want to give
Speaker 1: me one of them John Sales movies. Why I need
Speaker 1: to be one of those auditioned for him constantly. I
Speaker 1: never bought them. I actually got really close to a
Speaker 1: few things, but I never got anything. Where I did
Speaker 1: really well was in television. I kept like booking TV things,
Speaker 1: but they would put you on hold, and then they
Speaker 1: do do pilots for them, And that's the other thing
Speaker 1: to my pilots holding deals, they would wouldn't get picked up.
Speaker 1: Whenever anybody says how do you plan your career? You know,
Speaker 1: I mean you left because we don't have any control.
Speaker 1: There's the thing about it is you seem like somebody
Speaker 1: who's had a plan. Once you started making films, where
Speaker 1: the things you just didn't do anymore. Did you try
Speaker 1: to say, I'm going to put all my eggs in
Speaker 1: this basket. No. Most of the time we just do
Speaker 1: with what you're offered. You do the best of what
Speaker 1: you're what you're offered. You know. I think after I
Speaker 1: was on the soap, I did you know, I didn't
Speaker 1: spend a lot of money. I kept my money in
Speaker 1: the banks, so then I spent some time doing theater
Speaker 1: because I really felt like I wanted to do that,
Speaker 1: you know, to comparing yourself. Yeah, I wanted to do
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. And then I would do some
Speaker 1: TV movies and try to get you know, and then
Speaker 1: the holding deals to that. You make money doing that,
Speaker 1: But in between short cuts and playing Sarah Palin, it's
Speaker 1: not a lot of TV in between there. Once you
Speaker 1: start making movies big time, you're making movies. Yes, that's
Speaker 1: you don't go back to TV very much at all. No, No,
Speaker 1: because also it's kind of it changed, you know, because
Speaker 1: there was a period to where because now now it's
Speaker 1: sort of like called you know, now it's the golden
Speaker 1: needs with television. Now there there's such kind of um
Speaker 1: interesting quality stuff until you know, great writing, great acting,
Speaker 1: and you know. So I think things have changed, But
Speaker 1: there was a period when TV was very basic. Network
Speaker 1: stuff was not terribly interesting. What was it like when
Speaker 1: you met Altman? Oh Man, he came to see Vanya,
Speaker 1: you know, when we were doing Uncle Vanya, and he
Speaker 1: sat there and I couldn't believe he was there. I
Speaker 1: don't even know if I said anything to him that day,
Speaker 1: because he was He's the reason that I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm a film actor because when I went to school
Speaker 1: in Boston, they were all the revival houses. To remember
Speaker 1: revival houses. This is like Grandpa, Grandma remember that, remember
Speaker 1: take your walk? Where would you? I went to the
Speaker 1: Brittle Theodore in Harvard Square, Hard Square. So the Brittle
Speaker 1: was a revival house and used to have all these
Speaker 1: different weird double bills and stuff. And I saw Three
Speaker 1: Women Altman's Three Women. And somehow I made it through
Speaker 1: the seventies without seeing Nashville or or Bruster McCloud or
Speaker 1: Came Mrs Miller any of those movies. So I watching
Speaker 1: mash So I'm watching this movie and I was like,
Speaker 1: who's this? Who made this movie? This movie is incredible.
Speaker 1: And it was the first time, as a young person
Speaker 1: that I noticed directorial hand, you know where I was like,
Speaker 1: this is a specific kind of storytelling and it's eliciting
Speaker 1: specific kind of acting. I kind of walked out of
Speaker 1: there and I thought I want to do that, And
Speaker 1: of course it wasn't in the realm of possibility for
Speaker 1: me the first ten years of my career. He came,
Speaker 1: so he's Alvania and then he met me on the
Speaker 1: player which I desperately wanted. I remember sitting there talking
Speaker 1: to him. He said, I'm not going to give this
Speaker 1: to you. It's like okay, and that was it. I
Speaker 1: was devastated. And then I got this phone call out
Speaker 1: of the blue for shortcuts. Hi, it's Bob Aaltman. Do
Speaker 1: you remember me? Know who I am? And I was.
Speaker 1: I thought was somebody playing a trick on me? I
Speaker 1: really did. I didn't think it was possible that he
Speaker 1: you know, that's when we had hard lines to pick
Speaker 1: up your phone and he said, I have this movie
Speaker 1: that I want you to do. I said, I'll do it.
Speaker 1: I'll do it because no, I want you to read
Speaker 1: it first and then you can tell me if you
Speaker 1: want to do it. You know. But it was really,
Speaker 1: I mean really, really a dream come true to work
Speaker 1: with him. What an amazing man. Did you make a
Speaker 1: movie with him? No? You know, from what I could see,
Speaker 1: he was someone who listen. It's no secret I think
Speaker 1: when you're in the business that we're out of it,
Speaker 1: but especially when you're in the business that casting and
Speaker 1: effective casting is six or more of a director's job.
Speaker 1: They want to just bring people to the party who
Speaker 1: know how to hit the ball, and he was someone
Speaker 1: who I'll never forget, someone said to me. They were
Speaker 1: all gathered there in this air sense rehearsals. Some of
Speaker 1: them were able to attend it somewhere, and Bob just
Speaker 1: turned everybody and said, uh anooka May was in it
Speaker 1: in Australiani and so Fielder. And he would looked at
Speaker 1: them and he was like, now a nook, you just
Speaker 1: go ahead and speak French. You speak French if you
Speaker 1: want to, or English or Italian Marcello, say whatever you
Speaker 1: want to say. Y'all, just say anything you want to say,
Speaker 1: and speak in whatever language you want to speak in
Speaker 1: and I'll fix it in the edit, sub titler or whatever.
Speaker 1: He seems so uncontrolling he was. The thing about Bob
Speaker 1: was that you couldn't do anything wrong, so it made
Speaker 1: you feel like you could do anything, and you would
Speaker 1: do anything for him. You'd be like, oh, what can
Speaker 1: I do? What can I do? It's like whatever you
Speaker 1: want to do. But it wasn't like it was chaos.
Speaker 1: You know, he's set up. It was like there was
Speaker 1: a corral that all the actors were in was his corral.
Speaker 1: And even with an improv he'd say, okay, you know
Speaker 1: improv this. He said that a let's do it again,
Speaker 1: but this time you just say that part. So he
Speaker 1: was in complete control of it. But he really made
Speaker 1: you feel so free and so love non judgmental. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a quote I read about you where someone says
Speaker 1: they cast you in shortcuts and you were total unknown. Right,
Speaker 1: She's a total unknown, they said casting. I thought, and
Speaker 1: I think you've been working for most ten years. For
Speaker 1: ten years. However, within that cast, I was the only
Speaker 1: person with thirty people and who wasn't famous. So it
Speaker 1: isn't amazing how in the movie business, if you haven't
Speaker 1: done a movie, any of us have seen exactly what
Speaker 1: changed if you did that film? Did you change personally?
Speaker 1: Did I change? I'm ugly and I have no talents, right,
Speaker 1: and now i'm and then I and then I was,
Speaker 1: and then I became yeah, talented and I know everything
Speaker 1: we know. It was interesting and I think this is
Speaker 1: and it's actually very similar to what I felt growing
Speaker 1: up as a kid. You would be in one situation.
Speaker 1: You'd be at a school and maybe you would be
Speaker 1: a kid who wasn't very popular and no one thought
Speaker 1: you were very interesting or something, and then you'd moved
Speaker 1: to another school. That's school everybody would think you were
Speaker 1: interesting for some reason. It would just happen, and you think, like, well,
Speaker 1: I was the same person. I haven't changed that much.
Speaker 1: So it's a perception. Perception has changed. The perception was
Speaker 1: changed after all of them. So well, and so that's
Speaker 1: what happened to me too. So after ten years of
Speaker 1: doing television and theater, although people don't see the theaters,
Speaker 1: they don't think you really exist. She TV people thought, oh,
Speaker 1: she's a TV actress. And then I do work with
Speaker 1: Andre Gregory and Louis Mall and I work, you know,
Speaker 1: Robert Altman, and I work with Todd Haynes, and suddenly
Speaker 1: I'm a huge film Discovery. I'm in this amazing everyone. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then I'm like, I'm the same, the same thing.
Speaker 1: So I think, oddly, what happens is that you don't
Speaker 1: change a perception of yourself. You're like, well, clearly, it's
Speaker 1: just other people's perception. It solidified my own work ethic
Speaker 1: that it doesn't matter where I'm working. Did you feel
Speaker 1: that the way you grew up fed this in terms
Speaker 1: of you being because because you had to reinvent yourself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well you were you were seen by a fresh set
Speaker 1: of eyes again and again and again. You just you
Speaker 1: have to discover a core self and a corpse. Of course,
Speaker 1: that's the values. And people kind of poo poo and
Speaker 1: say like oh DV or oh this or that. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, it's all valuable, all of us, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: When I do radio announcing, it's work. Work, work is work,
Speaker 1: and it's also it's it's valuable for you to do
Speaker 1: your best no matter where you are too. I really
Speaker 1: really believe that you know in everything you do. And
Speaker 1: I also resent it when people say they can't do
Speaker 1: something like they can't they were terrible waitress, And I'm
Speaker 1: like why because you weren't paying attention. You're supposed to
Speaker 1: write down what I said. So it's it's important, no
Speaker 1: matter what you're doing, to put effort into it. I think,
Speaker 1: did you have a good representation during that time? I did? Well.
Speaker 1: It's interesting I've been with the same agent now and
Speaker 1: the same manager for twenty years. My first ten years,
Speaker 1: I did change representatives a few times before I landed
Speaker 1: where I landed. My first agent was terrible. Was this
Speaker 1: an agency called Hesseltine Baker. Remember them, so they got
Speaker 1: me out. So they put pulled me out of school.
Speaker 1: It was a big deal to have an agent. And
Speaker 1: I had no auditions at all, nothing, absolutely nothing an agent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: no one called my answering service. No auditions. And then
Speaker 1: I got a phone call, um Bob Bob Hesseltine and
Speaker 1: what was it? Who was the guy? Anyway, I remember
Speaker 1: the guys. But one of the big guys called me
Speaker 1: and said he had something really really important and a
Speaker 1: great opportunity for me. And I got so excited. And
Speaker 1: he said it was for a friend of his. They
Speaker 1: needed a girl to fit in a costume to ride
Speaker 1: on a float in the Thanksgiving a parade. Do you
Speaker 1: remember what the costume was. I don't. Maybe it was
Speaker 1: a turkey, a super hot turkey, a redheaded turkey. And
Speaker 1: that's when I was like, this is ridiculous, Thank you
Speaker 1: very much, I'm leaving. What advice does an agent give you? Oh, people,
Speaker 1: they don't give you any They don't. They were like
Speaker 1: air traffic controllers. Well, here's the interesting thing I think
Speaker 1: about acting, and I hear this from I hear this
Speaker 1: with young actors and stuff too. And when people would
Speaker 1: say in the press, they say I didn't choose that,
Speaker 1: you know, my agent chose that for me, and my
Speaker 1: agent said I should do it or so and so
Speaker 1: made me do it, And I'm like, that's Blowney makes
Speaker 1: you do anything? Isn't interesting when you run into that
Speaker 1: type of person who's heavily, heavily coached by agents and publicists,
Speaker 1: which is such a foreign thing to me. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is your life, you know, and it's and you
Speaker 1: make the decisions and you control you know, you can.
Speaker 1: You're totally self determining the material you've done. Yeah, were
Speaker 1: you ever talked into doing a movie? I've talked myself
Speaker 1: into doing things for money, you know, But then but
Speaker 1: then I have, but I take responsibility for it. I
Speaker 1: don't think there's anything where somebody said you really should
Speaker 1: do this piece where I did it unless I felt
Speaker 1: like there was an economic comparative. But mostly Julianne avoids
Speaker 1: the money trap. She works instead with some of the
Speaker 1: best in the business. Coming up, she'll discuss her collaborations
Speaker 1: with David Cronenberg and Gus van Zandt next time on
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing. I talked with tennis legend John McEnroe.
Speaker 1: His idea to improve the game will not surprise you.
Speaker 1: If you really want to make the game more part
Speaker 1: bear to me. No umpires on the court, No linesman.
Speaker 1: You don't need linesmen. They've already proven they can't see anything.
Speaker 1: Over the course of the last fifty years, John McEnroe
Speaker 1: talks tennis, family and his love of music. Next time
Speaker 1: on Here's the Thing. This is Alec Baldwin. My guest
Speaker 1: today is Julianne Moore. I have always assumed that More
Speaker 1: picked her projects carefully, and that she turned down mediocre
Speaker 1: films that offered huge payouts. To be honest with you,
Speaker 1: I mean, I would like to say that I did,
Speaker 1: but don't. I didn't have a whole like huge leading leady.
Speaker 1: When people hired you, what were they hiring you for?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, I mean a lot of
Speaker 1: things that I've done were smaller budgeted things. I think
Speaker 1: the budget decide what did they expect from you acting? Was?
Speaker 1: I have an idea? But you tell me, really, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Well, you know, in the nineties in particular,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people who were working who
Speaker 1: are who were writer directors, and they were kind of
Speaker 1: I'm sort of a really great great period for independent film.
Speaker 1: I think people were the to tell these really unusual
Speaker 1: stories and there wasn't an economic expectation on them either.
Speaker 1: That's changed. So it was about being involved in that
Speaker 1: narrative and that in that vision and stuff. You know.
Speaker 1: It really was bringing that story to life, I think.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean in the commercial films that I've done,
Speaker 1: I've done, I've done, yeah, but I had I've had
Speaker 1: great directors like Steven Spielberg and Ridley Scott only did
Speaker 1: the first sequel. He did the first one and then
Speaker 1: they was out of it. Does the opportunity to work
Speaker 1: with him that was amazing? But did that take forever?
Speaker 1: It took six months? I guess. Yeah. You know, I
Speaker 1: did a movie called Nine Months that also took six
Speaker 1: months back in those days, you know, But I don't
Speaker 1: think I ever took off as a commercial movie. You
Speaker 1: could really, what do you think he did Jurassic I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know that I could have. I mean,
Speaker 1: I did you send singles to the business that you
Speaker 1: were not in that game that well? Honestly, I don't
Speaker 1: think so. I don't think that I did. I think
Speaker 1: I was, you know, I think I kind of was
Speaker 1: like all Playball. But I don't know that any of
Speaker 1: those movies were hits. You know. I was in Hannibal.
Speaker 1: That wasn't a huge hit. I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: I really I really don't know. But I do know
Speaker 1: that I really like what I do. You know, I
Speaker 1: like you made every kind of movie. I've made every
Speaker 1: kind of You've made every kind of movie. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you've done movies with Steven Spielberg, dinosaurs that you've done
Speaker 1: sequels or Anthony Hopkins chops his own handoff because he's
Speaker 1: so in love with you. Right, I've done independent drawing,
Speaker 1: Anderson movies Anderson, Yeah, scary movies, black and white movies.
Speaker 1: Did you do a black and movie? I don't know
Speaker 1: what I have. They didn't remake Psycho and Black and
Speaker 1: what they did it in color? They did it in
Speaker 1: color yet, But that was a remake. That was a
Speaker 1: shot by shot that I know, you know, so which
Speaker 1: which in an interview I read you thought that was
Speaker 1: something you should not have done. I think it failed.
Speaker 1: I don't think that I shouldn't have done it, but
Speaker 1: I do think that when you're doing the film, that
Speaker 1: is a shot by shot. I mean, I just done
Speaker 1: this fascinating psychologically when you do a film. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not just saying this for your benefit. You are
Speaker 1: a very very, very very talented woman. And van Zant
Speaker 1: is a good director. What does van Zant when he's
Speaker 1: remaking a shot by shot one of the greatest thrillers
Speaker 1: in history? Did Van zan have to say anything to
Speaker 1: bolster you to get through that experience? Was he like
Speaker 1: trying to know? And it wasn't like it wasn't like
Speaker 1: we had to be bolster to get through it. I
Speaker 1: think we're all very specifically trying to recreate, recreate it,
Speaker 1: but in a month and now, I wish if if
Speaker 1: we were do it again, I would like to do
Speaker 1: it in black and white. I'd like to do it
Speaker 1: in the same costume. I'd like to do it with
Speaker 1: the exact same vestation. Let's do Let's do the better
Speaker 1: remake of PSYCHOA that that to me? I think that
Speaker 1: would have been that we sort of modernized it but
Speaker 1: then kept the old pacing and it was Yeah. Who's great?
Speaker 1: Oh um, Vince Vaughan was as a director, he was great.
Speaker 1: He's such a lovely person, very very soft spoken, you know,
Speaker 1: just incredibly incredibly soft spoken. I liked him a lot.
Speaker 1: I'd like to work with him on something that he
Speaker 1: you know that I loved Elephant Elephant. I always tell
Speaker 1: people see Elephant, which is his Columbine film. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: what an amazing film. It's been an amazing film. It's
Speaker 1: like the most hypnotic film that has a Columbine type
Speaker 1: of theme to it. And I love US. I think
Speaker 1: Us is incredible. I think my favorite kind of acting
Speaker 1: to do. Though. We saw Todd Haynes, my friend Todd
Speaker 1: Haynes I made Far from Heaven and Safe with and
Speaker 1: we had dinner together and we were talking about our
Speaker 1: experience and he said, why did you understand? How did
Speaker 1: you understand how minimal the acting was going to be?
Speaker 1: And I said, I felt like I saw it in
Speaker 1: the language. His language was so spare and so specific,
Speaker 1: and then I would say, let me see the frame,
Speaker 1: and his frames were also I felt like he was
Speaker 1: communicating so much just in the frame. So my favorite
Speaker 1: thing is an actor is to know what the director's
Speaker 1: vision is, to be communicated that way through the language
Speaker 1: and in the shot, and then I'm like, now I
Speaker 1: know what I'm doing. Give me an example. Well, like
Speaker 1: when Todd Todd had a shot of a very wide
Speaker 1: living room, you know, at a baby shower, and there
Speaker 1: were a bunch of women all the way at the
Speaker 1: right side of the frame. I had crossed all the
Speaker 1: way across and was standing up on the left side
Speaker 1: of frame, and I just asked where the ladies room
Speaker 1: in My only line is can you tell me where
Speaker 1: the lady's room is, please, or something like that. And
Speaker 1: I could see it was all about this movement of her,
Speaker 1: kind of trying to reach over these people. So so
Speaker 1: once I looked at that, I was like, Okay, well
Speaker 1: I can see if I hunched my shoulders forward, then
Speaker 1: my then this little figure is kind of bowed in
Speaker 1: this big, wide frame, you know. So he's telling the
Speaker 1: story of alienation. You know, you don't have to talk
Speaker 1: about anything, you just do it. It's great. When I
Speaker 1: was saying before, how I think, you know, I know
Speaker 1: what it is. People hire you for what they expect
Speaker 1: from you. I think the the ingredient in the meal
Speaker 1: that you are is a tremendous amount of emotional truth.
Speaker 1: You have a kind of emotional residence, but you turn
Speaker 1: on and off, you know, like I always I want
Speaker 1: to talk to about Pete Anderson for a minute, like
Speaker 1: when you do Boogie Nights and that character you played,
Speaker 1: you played someone who was so cut off to that.
Speaker 1: Then that's what I perforce reality. What I perceived was
Speaker 1: was did you make a choice with this woman? That
Speaker 1: famous scene you have with him where he's going to
Speaker 1: have sex with you when you tell him you can
Speaker 1: do this to me, and you're very do this, do this,
Speaker 1: do this, you can do this to me, go ahead,
Speaker 1: go ahead, and you're kind of holding it. It's like
Speaker 1: his first day at school. Or she's a complete denial
Speaker 1: about what's going on. And she's someone who's made an
Speaker 1: economic choice, you know, really she's given up her family,
Speaker 1: has given up her child. She probably was in a
Speaker 1: position where this was the only kind of work she
Speaker 1: could get. She's a drug add you meet any of
Speaker 1: those people, Yeah, she's a drug addict. My favorite scene
Speaker 1: in the movie is when she goes to court to
Speaker 1: get custody of her son. We're talking about booge and
Speaker 1: people who are listening, and she's all dressed up and
Speaker 1: she's trying to be kind of a straight arrow and stuff,
Speaker 1: and she feels very self righteous about getting her child back,
Speaker 1: and the Judge looks at her and says, Maggie, have
Speaker 1: you ever been arrested? And that's the end, and you go,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this you know, she's she's of course
Speaker 1: she's been arrested, you know, and she's just sobs and
Speaker 1: stops and stops, and you go, So, this is who,
Speaker 1: in her head thinks that she can be a parent,
Speaker 1: but she's she can't. She's not living a life is
Speaker 1: going to allow herself to parent a child, but she won't.
Speaker 1: It's a huge space between what she feels about herself
Speaker 1: and what the actual what was actually happen. That's the
Speaker 1: first time you worked with Anderson. Yeah, what have you
Speaker 1: been doing before that? What did he see you in? What? Safe?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think he saw me and but
Speaker 1: I think he saw the shortcuts and Safe and Vannie
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. You know. Paul was very young.
Speaker 1: He was twenty six when we met. We met at
Speaker 1: a party and a friend of mine introduced me to
Speaker 1: him and said, this guy wrote this script and he
Speaker 1: wants you to do it. And I was like, I
Speaker 1: would love to read it, and he said, you're going
Speaker 1: to be in my movie. Man. I got the script
Speaker 1: and I read it and I was like, holy cow,
Speaker 1: yes I am. This is fantastic. He has such an
Speaker 1: original voice, was so exciting. It was such an amazing
Speaker 1: story and so emotional and wonderful and rich, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I was lucky to get it. You know what you
Speaker 1: were saying. I was thinking about, how let me talk
Speaker 1: about emotion, you know on camera and stuff. You have
Speaker 1: that too. You have this, You have this tremendous vitality,
Speaker 1: like a real sense of being alive and a lot,
Speaker 1: a lot contained inside you. And it's wonderful to work
Speaker 1: with you because it just permeates the scene, like you know,
Speaker 1: you feel that. That's the trick. The trick is how
Speaker 1: do you live on camera? How do you become alive
Speaker 1: on camera? So that's all the stuff about acting. You know,
Speaker 1: you can kind of create all this kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, since you have to story about how you love. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but be alive, be alive. You did that great thing
Speaker 1: when we had that scene in Still Alice. You know,
Speaker 1: we had to say, remember Santorini, which is always really
Speaker 1: hard to start a scene with that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: and you said, and then you made you started laughing
Speaker 1: so hard, and then I started laughing. And then suddenly
Speaker 1: it's a scene about two people laughing because I was
Speaker 1: trying to remember. But you know, it's it's like, that's
Speaker 1: what you want, you know. That's why I like to
Speaker 1: talk when I work. What do people expect from you
Speaker 1: or think of you when they meet you. I think
Speaker 1: they think that I'm going to be more serious than
Speaker 1: I am. I guess because of all the dramas and
Speaker 1: the crying and stuff, they think that I'm going to
Speaker 1: be really dramatic and emotion of the film. But I'm not.
Speaker 1: As you know, I'm not a very serious person, and
Speaker 1: I'm not a very I'm not a terribly sad person. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can be serious, but I like to I'm very chatty.
Speaker 1: I like to talk all the way up to action.
Speaker 1: I do. I do, And if you can't talk to me,
Speaker 1: I'm really disappointed. Then I get lonely, and I want
Speaker 1: to be lonely when I want, I want to be
Speaker 1: with my buddy. I'm going to talk to me. You
Speaker 1: talk to me, friend, Let's buddies talk to you. What
Speaker 1: did you do this morning? What do you have for
Speaker 1: dinner last night? What are you doing later today? Are
Speaker 1: you cold? You like that sweater? Don't you like my sweater?
Speaker 1: What are you doing? Action acting? I love it, That's
Speaker 1: my favorite part. Then you get this great connection with
Speaker 1: other human being and then the scene is like comes alive.
Speaker 1: You do you think that that emotion is so available
Speaker 1: to you? Why it's inside It's inside everybody everyone. So
Speaker 1: it's like, how do you access that? You know your
Speaker 1: own story, everybody else's story. You know what you're getting
Speaker 1: on top, it's just like the tiniest little like shell.
Speaker 1: Other than that, there's all this stuff. But then, but then,
Speaker 1: like I said, it's easier for me to get into
Speaker 1: it when i'm when I'm you know, talking to you
Speaker 1: about you know how much I like your sweater? And
Speaker 1: you know where you live? And are you going to
Speaker 1: rent or are you going to buy? Or you know
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. You know, how are your kids?
Speaker 1: You know? How was seventh grade for so and so?
Speaker 1: I mean, I I love all that stuff. I remember
Speaker 1: when I was younger, I think it was even unconsciousness.
Speaker 1: I would see people acting films and the predominant examples
Speaker 1: would be like Brando or Gina or something like that,
Speaker 1: where them breaking down wasn't a big deal. These are
Speaker 1: like notes you played in music, like that's just what
Speaker 1: people do. I didn't think about it, like like it
Speaker 1: was separate because I went to Strasbourg where they really
Speaker 1: they put you in the frying pan and they really
Speaker 1: made you get to that. And I went to act
Speaker 1: to school for a year where we basically cried for
Speaker 1: like a year. They will they try to get you
Speaker 1: used to being a but the funny thing is is
Speaker 1: that that's just a technique to get you to tap
Speaker 1: into it because people don't really behave that way, but
Speaker 1: you have to find it once again. It's all about
Speaker 1: what's true, what's real. It's like guns in movies and
Speaker 1: guns going off and people hitting people. Sometimes, especially early
Speaker 1: on in my career, people be like and then someone
Speaker 1: gets slapped, and I thought, wait, people don't slap each other,
Speaker 1: and if somebody does, it's shocking. So remember that when
Speaker 1: when there's a physical altercation, you're shocked by it. When
Speaker 1: people cry, it's upsetting. You're not trying to cry. You're
Speaker 1: trying not to cry because you don't want to be embarrassed,
Speaker 1: you know. So it's like, so all that acting school
Speaker 1: stuff is about learning how to locate all those feelings.
Speaker 1: But then over time with experience, you learn, like the
Speaker 1: greats like Brando, to modulate them when you worked with
Speaker 1: PT with Paul Thomas Anderson, Boogie Knights was the first
Speaker 1: film was he helpful to. He was a director who
Speaker 1: did it all basically take care of itself. Because it
Speaker 1: was so care of itself, I have to say, all
Speaker 1: he stands great directors, All the greatest directors say very
Speaker 1: very little. Magnolia was harder because it was so emotional
Speaker 1: and I was really trying to plot it, you know,
Speaker 1: because I had to literally cry in every scene, and
Speaker 1: so I had to I'm like, all right, paula, Paul,
Speaker 1: this is this is like the smaller crying into the bigger,
Speaker 1: crying at the biggest, crying to the big, big, big,
Speaker 1: you know. So it's like I had to find a
Speaker 1: way to nothing. It wasn't like the level of hysteria
Speaker 1: had to change, you know. I had to be modulated.
Speaker 1: I couldn't be at ten. I had to be at
Speaker 1: two and you know, get to ten and all that
Speaker 1: kind of There are times when I'll say to director,
Speaker 1: I want you to watch my vocal pattern. I want
Speaker 1: you to watch my level of hysteria. I wanted it whatever,
Speaker 1: but basically, I want them to direct the movie. Do
Speaker 1: you know I feel like I feel like there's a
Speaker 1: it's a misnomer that the director is an acting coach.
Speaker 1: The director is there to direct the audiences I through
Speaker 1: a film. The actor is doing the acting. They shouldn't
Speaker 1: have to say, you know, when you had a tough
Speaker 1: time with the director, how was it tough without naming names?
Speaker 1: What was tough when they talk to me too much? Well,
Speaker 1: because I always say to everybody, please don't speak to
Speaker 1: me before I've done any acting, I said, because I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to, Yeah, see what I come up with.
Speaker 1: And if I'm way off base, and please, by all means,
Speaker 1: come up and say like, wow, that wasn't what I expected.
Speaker 1: But if I hear too much, I mean, this is
Speaker 1: gonna sound really silly and precious. But I always say
Speaker 1: that acting. So it's like this little flame and you've
Speaker 1: got this little thing and you're thinking, Okay, I wanted
Speaker 1: to this to work, but you don't want to blow
Speaker 1: it out. If somebody comes along and says this is
Speaker 1: what I think, they might just blow it out and
Speaker 1: then you have nowhere, you know, then you can't reach
Speaker 1: it anymore. And that was emotional as you are, and
Speaker 1: you have this remarkable emotional residence in your work. What
Speaker 1: do you like privately to the extent that you want
Speaker 1: to say, You're a mother. Yes, you were married before before,
Speaker 1: married again married. I'm married now, but I've been with
Speaker 1: my husband for eighteen years. We have two children, they're
Speaker 1: sixteen and twelve. I have a fantastic, fantastic family. I
Speaker 1: have two dogs. They're black, one is small and one
Speaker 1: is big, a Chihuahua and a lab and uh. We
Speaker 1: live in New York City. I have a really nice life.
Speaker 1: I'm really really lucky. You try to keep it simple,
Speaker 1: oh man, Yeah, I really do. I try to keep
Speaker 1: it when he tagged team work because he makes films.
Speaker 1: He makes films on television too. You know, we've been
Speaker 1: very fortunate. I mean, it's interesting because the work life
Speaker 1: balance thing is always an issue for everybody when they're little.
Speaker 1: When they were babies, it was super super easy because
Speaker 1: babies don't know where they are and you can bring
Speaker 1: them everywhere. And also we have an incredibly tolerant business
Speaker 1: towards women with children. I have to say thank goodness
Speaker 1: for the movie business. I remember my son was when
Speaker 1: I was doing Psycho. As a matter of fact, my
Speaker 1: son was nine months old and I was still getting
Speaker 1: used to having a baby, and he was always with
Speaker 1: me and stuff, and he was hysterical in the trailer
Speaker 1: one day and I was nursing him and trying to
Speaker 1: him to calm down. They knocked the trailer door and
Speaker 1: they said, you know, we need you. And I was like, come,
Speaker 1: and this adorable p a said, no, worries, man, take
Speaker 1: your time, and I was like, holy cow, I'm the
Speaker 1: luckiest woman in the world, you know, I mean so
Speaker 1: so our business is very tolerant. We're lucky, and I
Speaker 1: have no complaints as an actress. Did you turn down
Speaker 1: a lot of work with your family? So you do?
Speaker 1: You do? I shout, you turn things down because you
Speaker 1: can't travel, you know, You're like, once the kids are
Speaker 1: in school, I can't go in a few days, and
Speaker 1: I feel terrible. I do. Yeah, it's tough, and it's
Speaker 1: tougher on women because when you have infants, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's easier for you because you can
Speaker 1: go and come back, but it it doesn't make it mean
Speaker 1: it's emotionally easy for you. But yeah, so I work.
Speaker 1: I try to work. If I have to travel. I
Speaker 1: do it in the summertime when everybody can come. I
Speaker 1: work in the city when they're in school, and you know,
Speaker 1: try to a bunch things. If I have to travel,
Speaker 1: a bunch of together, and you know, and I have
Speaker 1: a partner who's an equal parent, and we alternate. Michael
Speaker 1: Fox said that once years ago. He said, they send
Speaker 1: you a script. Into the script said open on the
Speaker 1: skyline of Manhattan. He closed the script and say, I'm in.
Speaker 1: That's it. Absolutely, I'm I'm done. Just write me a check.
Speaker 1: I've no idea. This tax break in New York City
Speaker 1: has been a godsend. You got to keep that going.
Speaker 1: It's amazing because I've been able to do so many
Speaker 1: movies at home. I mean it really and yeah, I'm like,
Speaker 1: it's a New York alright, Fine, it's great, or at
Speaker 1: least a place that has an airport that's really accessible
Speaker 1: and you can, you know, go in and out for
Speaker 1: three days. Someone who is as well regarded and who's
Speaker 1: made as many great films as you've made. When you're
Speaker 1: one of those people that you look over the list
Speaker 1: of films you've made, it's kind of amazing. The list
Speaker 1: of movies that thing you've done. Uh, when you think
Speaker 1: about co stars of yours, men and women that you
Speaker 1: worked with, were there times you did films that you
Speaker 1: just thought to yourself, God, I'm so lucky that you
Speaker 1: were really excited. Do you get excited to work with people?
Speaker 1: Give me a couple of examples of people over the
Speaker 1: years you work with you were really happy Alec No, No, seriously,
Speaker 1: but other than conducting a radio No, it's true. It's true.
Speaker 1: I've always wanted to work. I always wanted to work
Speaker 1: with you and I had at such a great time.
Speaker 1: That's why I wanted Wash to stop talking so I
Speaker 1: could send The director would come up and give us
Speaker 1: notes and look, I give him this look like can't
Speaker 1: you see that Julie and I are hanging at this
Speaker 1: better be important? Anyways, some other people if I loved,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Ray Finds. We had a great time
Speaker 1: together on end of the affair was really really special,
Speaker 1: like a great, really great connection. James Grow Do you
Speaker 1: know James le Grow. He's a friend of mine. I've
Speaker 1: worked with him on a couple of movies Single Man.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Colin, he was amazing. You know, I look
Speaker 1: at so many men I never worked with women. I
Speaker 1: mean Laura Dern and I worked together. She played a
Speaker 1: small part in a movie that were I had no women.
Speaker 1: We did the Hours, you didn't have scenes with that.
Speaker 1: We were all in separate movies. So I remember, I
Speaker 1: was like, so I got to be great friends with Laura.
Speaker 1: Was so excited that she was there and we had
Speaker 1: She did this beautiful thing. It was a scene where
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to be with a bunch of women at
Speaker 1: a party and it's like the first time I've been
Speaker 1: out and I feel really independent and terrific, and and
Speaker 1: she's this lovely woman I've only corresponded with. And we
Speaker 1: had this big scene all the him a chatting and talking,
Speaker 1: and she looked over at me. And this is off camera,
Speaker 1: by the way, too, so you can you know you
Speaker 1: wouldn't you can see this was just personal. And she
Speaker 1: grabbed my hands, squeezed it and like winked, gave me
Speaker 1: a little wink and I almost burst into tears because
Speaker 1: that's what the scene was last what it was like
Speaker 1: for my character, like to be seen by this other woman,
Speaker 1: to have this connection, this friendship, and Laura just did
Speaker 1: it and I was like, oh, I love you. So much.
Speaker 1: It really is remarkable when you have that kind of
Speaker 1: experience with with an actor, that sort of connection. I
Speaker 1: love it. Can you name one role you played that
Speaker 1: It was really hard. It was really a challenge, and
Speaker 1: when it was over and you saw the film, you thought,
Speaker 1: you know, that's a pretty good movie. The hours did.
Speaker 1: The hours was really really hard. It was a really
Speaker 1: hard shoot. My son was three, and we worked really
Speaker 1: long hours and I would get home and he'd be
Speaker 1: waiting up with in London, and he was waiting up
Speaker 1: for me. He wouldn't go to sleep until I got home,
Speaker 1: you know, because he slept in my bed for a
Speaker 1: long long time until he was four and off. Um.
Speaker 1: He'd be mortified to hear that on the radio, but
Speaker 1: it was the radio, you know, hope you wanted to
Speaker 1: cut that won't listen, You won't listen, but he um.
Speaker 1: So I was worriorded about getting home. I was in
Speaker 1: scenes with another little boy who was not easy to
Speaker 1: deal with because he was only six and he was
Speaker 1: kind of all over the place. We kept changing shots.
Speaker 1: It was very hard, and I just couldn't feel like
Speaker 1: I was getting anything right. And I think each and
Speaker 1: all these separate segments and then I saw the movie
Speaker 1: to Get and I was like, Holy Cow's movie beautiful.
Speaker 1: I mean, you just don't know, you really don't know.
Speaker 1: You don't know. Ever, Yeah, you did a film recently
Speaker 1: and you were you can explain the whole travel slip
Speaker 1: up here where you weren't able to accept this award,
Speaker 1: but you won Best Actress of the can Film and
Speaker 1: you were there. I did. I was there while I
Speaker 1: was there for an entire week. So I'd gotten there
Speaker 1: to do work for Loreal, who I work with, and
Speaker 1: then I had Hunger Games Press because they were doing something,
Speaker 1: and then I had a film and competition called Maps
Speaker 1: the Stars David Cronenberg. Movie was Cronenberg the same as
Speaker 1: the other ones where he didn't say very much. No,
Speaker 1: he's saying anything, very very little. Um. So at that
Speaker 1: point I've been there for seven days. I was really exhausted.
Speaker 1: And we got home and it was Thursday before Memorial
Speaker 1: Day weekend, and Friday we picked our kids up from
Speaker 1: school and we came out to MONTALUK where I have
Speaker 1: a house, and Saturday morning is when the awards happened
Speaker 1: in can and I wasn't expecting anything, and I figured
Speaker 1: if they were going to tell me something that they
Speaker 1: would let me know. And I just got a phone
Speaker 1: call while I was folding towels at the pool after
Speaker 1: sweeping out my shed and stuff like that, Memorial Day weekend,
Speaker 1: saying you just I just accepted Best Actress for you
Speaker 1: I can from Bruce Wagner, the screenwriter. I was stunned.
Speaker 1: What kind of movie is it. It's a Cronenberg film,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a movie about all these people in Hollywood.
Speaker 1: It's it's about families. I think. Actually, I mean a
Speaker 1: lot of people think that it's about Hollywood, but I
Speaker 1: really think it's about families and about people's desire to
Speaker 1: connect and be seen and instead of being seen intimately
Speaker 1: by a family member, they want to be validated by
Speaker 1: the outside world, and how destructive that is and how
Speaker 1: cruel it can be. It's really rough. And David did this.
Speaker 1: This is what was cool about seeing how director communicates
Speaker 1: to you. Because my first day of shooting and he
Speaker 1: was setting up these shots and he brought me in
Speaker 1: on a kind of a long angle and I sat
Speaker 1: down at a table and he shot me a washakuska
Speaker 1: and he shot me and then I realized that he
Speaker 1: didn't do a two shot, and that we didn't ever
Speaker 1: come into each other's frame. We never crossed frames. At
Speaker 1: one point I came around, I entered her frame, but
Speaker 1: I never pushed into her frame. There was never any
Speaker 1: physical So everyone in the film is isolated, and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I get it. So, you know, he
Speaker 1: kept everybody purposely isolated, and it's really devastating to see
Speaker 1: something shot that way, with that kind of remove, and
Speaker 1: that you think all these people want to do is
Speaker 1: be in a frame with one another. You know, that's
Speaker 1: all we do. We're usually right on top of each other,
Speaker 1: is people, and David kept everybody very separate. So it's
Speaker 1: sort of heartbreaking, very erotic film. No, no, you wish
Speaker 1: it's not. It's it's not erotic. No, why did you
Speaker 1: say that? Are you telling the truth? Why did people
Speaker 1: tell me the Cronen Works movie. You're completely you have
Speaker 1: a three way you and two other people, like a
Speaker 1: crazy theory. It is, but it's comical. It's a comic.
Speaker 1: It's a comical three way you know those Oh okay,
Speaker 1: well that's of course of a different color. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not very sexy, I have to say, and funny the
Speaker 1: funniest thing about The Three Way is that she's in bed,
Speaker 1: this terrible, this poor desperate woman is in bed with
Speaker 1: another man, another woman, And the man gets up to
Speaker 1: answer the phone and gets on the phone with a
Speaker 1: director it's working with. And my character desperately wants a
Speaker 1: part in the in this movie. So as she's sort
Speaker 1: of with this other woman, she's just trying to hear
Speaker 1: him on the phone and he hangs up in the
Speaker 1: first thing she says is mention me when you talk.
Speaker 1: Tell me about Cronenberg. Oh, I love him so much.
Speaker 1: He's a guy that you would expect to be really nutty,
Speaker 1: you know, because from all his film he's so smart.
Speaker 1: He's interested in absolutely everything. He he can speak eloquently
Speaker 1: on any subject. He loves people, devoted to his family.
Speaker 1: Has worked with the same crew, the same DP for
Speaker 1: the last thirty years or so, you know, lives in Toronto,
Speaker 1: works in Toronto and makes movies about kind of extreme
Speaker 1: human behavior. But it's all within the realm of possibility.
Speaker 1: Look at a movie like Existence So which was so
Speaker 1: precient with that kind of crazy, with that gaming going
Speaker 1: inside your head for the virtual reality and Jason the
Speaker 1: brilliant Jennifer Jason and with the portal, you know that
Speaker 1: that weird they have, But yeah, so, I mean he
Speaker 1: really pushes what the possibilities of the imagination are and
Speaker 1: and and our own, you know, physical possibilities. And he's
Speaker 1: driven I think by his own intellect and curiosity. He's
Speaker 1: a wonderful man. What are your kids? What are your kids?
Speaker 1: My kids are great. My son is sixteen. He's very tall,
Speaker 1: he's going to get even taller. He loves basketball, he
Speaker 1: loves music. He's an accomplishment usition. He's like his dad.
Speaker 1: He's like his dad and a surfer and snowboarder and physical, yeah, physical,
Speaker 1: but also very sensitive, emotional boy and hard working. It
Speaker 1: works very hard. My daughter is just twelve. She's tall
Speaker 1: and slender. She loved to ride horses. She loves fashion.
Speaker 1: She makes clothes. He's a sewing machine. She loves you, Alec.
Speaker 1: She's always like hi, Hi, Hi, Oh is that Alex God?
Speaker 1: You look so thuous, so gorge. She's like thanks, thanks,
Speaker 1: and she's like fining me, well, thank you for saying
Speaker 1: so funny. Oh my goodness. She is fun. She's a
Speaker 1: great spirit. She did this imitation. We were watching the
Speaker 1: v m as and she's playing it for me, and
Speaker 1: they did it. They cut to the Kardashians and the
Speaker 1: audience watching, and then she's like, mom, mom, this is
Speaker 1: what they look like. And then she and it was
Speaker 1: it was hysterical. I was like, you're right, that was
Speaker 1: really funny. So I don't know. So she's already, but
Speaker 1: I don't know. Right, Actually she wants to be a
Speaker 1: fashion designer, So we'll see. Who knows. You work a lot,
Speaker 1: and when you're not working, and if you have, especially
Speaker 1: if you have a decent spell of time off, what
Speaker 1: do you like to do with yourself? I spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time with my kids, taking them to school,
Speaker 1: bringing them mom school. You're doing all the mom stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm very interested in my house. I'd like to decorate
Speaker 1: my house, go to my yoga place a lot. I'd
Speaker 1: love that I've been intermediate in your for ten years.
Speaker 1: I like to say better than I am ten years.
Speaker 1: I'm married. She's good here is really good. And then
Speaker 1: sometimes like this last summer, last winter, I guess we
Speaker 1: had a friend who could teach watercolor. So all my
Speaker 1: friends from from yoga got together and we took watercolor
Speaker 1: lessons and then we learned how to kind of like
Speaker 1: do deco page. I know that sounds crazy, but it
Speaker 1: was sort of a fun thing to do. You read,
Speaker 1: and I love to read, and you read scripts when
Speaker 1: you think about what you want to do next and
Speaker 1: when you're not acting, are you mindful of that and
Speaker 1: you're grateful for the time and you're glad to have
Speaker 1: time off and be with your family, or do you
Speaker 1: like sitting there going I want to get back to working.
Speaker 1: You know. It's the kind of thing. I know. I
Speaker 1: am a workaholic in the sense that I really like
Speaker 1: to be working. I like, I love to be at work,
Speaker 1: Like I love the crew, I love the cast, the
Speaker 1: other actors. I like the idea of going into work.
Speaker 1: I like being like, no, I'm scared of that. I
Speaker 1: ran into Matthew Broderick the other day and I said,
Speaker 1: aren't you scared of the people? And he said, no,
Speaker 1: I mean I like it. It's really helps when it's
Speaker 1: a comedy. And I was thinking about him and Nathan Lane,
Speaker 1: and you know, you know when you watch Nathan Lane
Speaker 1: and he gets a laugh and then he stretches and
Speaker 1: it's like he makes the laugh bigger. And I think
Speaker 1: Nathan has his sense almost like if you were tickling
Speaker 1: a kid, like you know how to tickle a kid
Speaker 1: a little bit, yea. And Nathan like does it like
Speaker 1: he tickles the audience. He and I don't feel like
Speaker 1: I have any sense to that. I think I have
Speaker 1: too much fear of a of a live audience. I
Speaker 1: like to pretend that no one's there, which is why
Speaker 1: I like movies. I like to pretend there's no one there,
Speaker 1: like I'm in the book. Yeah. Julianne Moore continues to
Speaker 1: Step into the Unknown, which is currently working on Free
Speaker 1: Held with Ellen Page, Steve Carrell, and Michael Shannon. It's
Speaker 1: based on the Oscar winning two thousand seven documentary about
Speaker 1: two women whose life story led to changes in the
Speaker 1: domestic partnership laws in New Jersey. You're listening to here's
Speaker 1: the thing. This is Alec Baldwin.