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Four-time Academy Award nominee Julianne Moore made her Broadway debut last week in David Hare's The Vertical Hour. She talked to TIME's Amy Lennard Goehner about theater, growing up during the Cold War and the role she's most proud of
TIME: You started out on the stage in college at Boston University, but why now, to make your Broadway debut?
Moore: When I first came to New York I had every intention of being a theater actor, it just didn't turn out that way; I got more jobs in television and films. Frankly I hadn't seen anything that kind of moved me. When Sam [Mendes] first sent the script to me I was doing a film, I kept thinking about the play. I mentioned it to Kate [Winslet, Mendes's wife] at our kids' nursery school and the next day Sam showed up and said 'If you can commit to Broadway right now, we'll move it,' and I said OK. The material was so compelling, so moving, so relevant. It's unbelievable timely.
In 1999 when you spoke with TIME you said when you read a script you don't so much as read it as listen to it. Was that the case with this script — it spoke to you?
Absolutely. The script has to exist outside of you. I'm not looking for a part, I'm looking for a story, I'm looking for a world. [In this script] there's a clearly a world that's inhabited by these characters. It's modern it's relevant, it's political, it's personal, it's about what we're living in now.
Nadia in the play has an epiphany. Has that ever happened to you personally — have you had a moment that changed everything?
I don't know if its anything I want to talk to TIME about! (laughs) One of the great things about acting is that you can have those epiphanies in your work. The whole idea is to gain a broader understanding of behavior and emotion and thought. Great writing is about being able to understand something that had been opaque to you before. You hope in your work to lend that epiphany to somebody else, to have them watch that and go, 'Oh yeah, now I understand that.'
Did something make you feel connected to Nadia? Was there something about her in particular?
Nadia reminds me of my father and in that sense she reminds me of me. My father spent his career fighting the Cold War, he joined the army when he was 19, went to Vietnam. His whole life was shaped by that arc in American politics. He's exceptionally liberal but in the military, but is a humanitarian and patriot who believes in humane intervention, in helping, that's what you do. Nadia is a person not afraid to say 'I care about the world to do something, and I care enough to be ostracized.' She's very much alone. I've always found that so moving about my father, that he cares so much about the world.
I was in Germany in high school in the '70s at the height of the Cold War. I worked in a place called Food Land, like an army 7-11 where these kids would be coming in on their first tour and they'd buy their cigarettes and they'd be shipped off to these border towns where they'd have to stand staring at the border. I was aware from a young age that was going on in the world, there's a lot of places where there is this extreme conflict, it's not just an idea, there's actually some kids standing there looking at the border.
And you moved around so much as a kid because of your dad's job [as a military judge]. Did that help you connect with Nadia, who feels that pull to foreign lands?
I certainly have a sense of the world being much bigger than my own experience of it. There's a global sense I have because of the way I was raised.
David Hare was quoted as saying that you were a perfect fit for this part because you have European qualities. Do you know what he meant?
I read that too. It's always interesting to hear what people see in you but you don't necessarily have an understanding of it. What's the biggest misconception people have of you?
That I'm exceptionally serious. (laughs)
Because of the roles you've played?
Because I've done a lot of serious roles. I think I take my work seriously, but I crack a lot of jokes and I'm pretty irreverent.
You've been directed by your husband [Bart Freundlich] three times, most recently in Trust the Man. I had read that he takes his notebook out and you say 'That's got to get in the movie.' How much of that film was autobiographical?
Everything a writer writes is autobiographical. That's been my conclusion, living with a writer. And working with someone like David [Hare], David is clearly present in this play, what he thinks. What I've learned from Bart is that every character is the writer, they are just different aspects of them. For a character to work, there has to be some part of the writer speaking through each of them
From your confessional (bottomless) speech in Short Cuts to being topless in Boogie Nights, you're clearly not afraid to take risks. What's the biggest risk you've taken professionally?
Just doing it, period, is a huge risk. If you talk to any actor they say, 'Why am I doing this?' It's terrifying, I can't eat. We're so afraid. I love it, but it's always terrifying, it's incredibly difficult and you always feel you're just about to fail.
Do you think about the day that comes and you are no longer offered romantic leading lady roles?
I'm a character actor. I'm not particularly worried about that. With any luck, there'll continue to be something for me to do. Anjelica Huston had this quote, she's like 'You'll continue to work, there's stuff for people to do. You're just not going to be the prettiest kitty in the litter any more.' Look at Meryl! She's got a career that all of us admire and envy, and she just keeps going and going.
What particular role are you most proud of?
A: The movie I had the most extraordinary time on both personally and professionally was Far From Heaven. It was written for me, which is a pretty great gift, and it was such a beautiful eloquent moving script, I left like every element of it supported me. It was like a joy ride the whole time. I was exhausted and six months pregnant, but we got to the last day and I felt really sad that I wasn't going to get up every day and do this movie.
Is there a role you're dying to do out there somewhere?
A: I never knew what I was going to do next, I don't know it until I see it. The material chooses you in a weird sort of way. It's like a life full of potholes, you don't know what you're going to fall into sometime.
- AMY LENNARD GOEHNER
- The Academy Award-nominated actress talks about theater, growing up during the Cold War and the role she's most proud of