New role hits close to home for Moore
New role hits close to home for Moore
Sunday, August 13, 2006
By AMY LONGSDORF
SPECIAL TO THE RECORD
As far as Julianne Moore is concerned, there's nothing better than making a movie a couple of blocks from your home, with your spouse behind the camera and your kids and best friend in the cast.
Moore can't say enough good things about "Trust the Man," which opens Friday. Shot in Manhattan's West Village, it was directed by Moore's husband, Bart Freundlich, and features appearances by the couple's children -- 8-year-old Cal and 4-year-old Liv -- as well as Moore's longtime buddy, Ellen Barkin.
But there was one catch to the family affair, Moore admits. Even though her husband wrote the script for the romantic comedy, he didn't enjoy shooting a scene in which Moore and movie spouse David Duchovny make out in the back of a taxi.
"Bart hates to see me kissing anybody onscreen, and David is one of his best friends," Moore, 46, says. "So there he was hanging over the front seat of the taxi staring at me and David.
"Every time I have to kiss somebody for a movie I tell Bart, 'I'm just pretending.' He should know that. But he always dreads those scenes. Dreads them."
When a script calls for Moore to hit the sheets with another actor, it precipitates "a two-month cold war" between the pair, she adds.
"Bart won't visit the set. He won't talk about the movie. I was negotiating something in the car the other day on an upcoming film, and Bart got so mad. I said, 'What's wrong?' And he said, 'You started talking about it! You brought it up! You brought it up!' "
Moore laughs so hard she practically doubles over.
Sitting in her Battery Park hotel suite, Moore is the picture of genteel elegance. She's wearing a white, lacy dress and high heels. Her skin is so pale, it seems untouched by the sun.
And yet she is anything but a starched presence. She whoops with laughter every chance she gets.
Despite a career that includes serious, even somber movies like "Safe," "Far From Heaven," "Vanya on 42nd Street" and "The Hours" -- and four Oscar nods -- Moore rarely takes herself seriously.
During the shooting of the downbeat "Freedomland," which was released earlier this year, Moore's co-star, Samuel L. Jackson, marveled at how easily she could turn her emotions on and off.
"At that time Julianne was kind of caught up in 'American Idol' and we'd be standing there ready to shoot and she'd be, like, 'Bo was singing so good last night.' And then the director would go 'Action!' and she would start crying. As soon as he said, 'Cut!' she would go, 'I really hope he wins tonight!' We both dove right into it and came right back out of it, and that was refreshing to me."
Freundlich believes Moore's talent is instinctive. "I think Julie's compassion is what makes her so inspiring as an actress," he says. "She told me that even as a kid when she was reading stories out loud in class, she could always see the whole thing from the perspectives of all of the characters. She's a genuine artist."
Moore and Freundlich met in 1996, while she was appearing in his first movie, "Myth of Fingerprints." At the time, she lived in Los Angeles and he in New York.
"After the movie wrapped, we commuted to see each other 35 weekends in a row," he recalls. "Then I moved out there for eight months while she shot 'The Lost World' and 'Boogie Nights.' But I finally convinced her to move back with me to New York, and we've been here ever since."
As it happens, New York is almost another character in "Trust the Man," a low-budget indie that follows the adventures of two tempestuous couples -- successful actress Rebecca (Moore) and her Mr. Mom husband, Tom (Duchovny), and her slacker younger brother Tobey (Billy Crudup) and his aspiring-novelist girlfriend, Elaine (Maggie Gyllenhaal).
Tobey's commitment issues lead to a fracture in his relationship with Elaine while Rebecca and Tom hit a speed bump when she discovers he cheated on her with a mom at their kids' school.
"I liked playing Rebecca because she's an actress but she just lives a regular life," Moore says. "She has this family and they all live in New York and she goes off to do her job. Bart presents it in a matter-of-fact way.
"I also like how the characters spend a lot of time talking about their marriage, their kids, their friends, their neighborhood. I think it's an interesting film in that it's very realistic-seeming, but it has a Hollywood-type happy ending, which confirms that men can be heroes in their own lives.
"It's a movie that values families and relationships above all else."
Is Moore worried that audiences will think that the Rebecca-Tom relationship is based on her own marriage to Freundlich?
"This is fiction; the infidelity is fiction," she clarifies. "But, sure, there's some parts that are autobiographical. I once almost choked on cake at a Golden Globes bash. Bart put that in the movie. The retainer is mine, only mine. It's not a fake retainer. It's a real retainer."
Working with her kids was a fun experience for Moore, who was happy to discover that Cal was more interested in talking to his tutor than emoting in front of the camera. Liv, meanwhile, proved herself a prime candidate for the family business.
"She's going to be an actress, no doubt," says Moore, a North Carolina native whose father was a military judge and whose mother was a social worker. "She loves costumes and makeup. Everything for her is role-playing in a gigantic way."
Sunday, August 13, 2006
By AMY LONGSDORF
SPECIAL TO THE RECORD
As far as Julianne Moore is concerned, there's nothing better than making a movie a couple of blocks from your home, with your spouse behind the camera and your kids and best friend in the cast.
Moore can't say enough good things about "Trust the Man," which opens Friday. Shot in Manhattan's West Village, it was directed by Moore's husband, Bart Freundlich, and features appearances by the couple's children -- 8-year-old Cal and 4-year-old Liv -- as well as Moore's longtime buddy, Ellen Barkin.
But there was one catch to the family affair, Moore admits. Even though her husband wrote the script for the romantic comedy, he didn't enjoy shooting a scene in which Moore and movie spouse David Duchovny make out in the back of a taxi.
"Bart hates to see me kissing anybody onscreen, and David is one of his best friends," Moore, 46, says. "So there he was hanging over the front seat of the taxi staring at me and David.
"Every time I have to kiss somebody for a movie I tell Bart, 'I'm just pretending.' He should know that. But he always dreads those scenes. Dreads them."
When a script calls for Moore to hit the sheets with another actor, it precipitates "a two-month cold war" between the pair, she adds.
"Bart won't visit the set. He won't talk about the movie. I was negotiating something in the car the other day on an upcoming film, and Bart got so mad. I said, 'What's wrong?' And he said, 'You started talking about it! You brought it up! You brought it up!' "
Moore laughs so hard she practically doubles over.
Sitting in her Battery Park hotel suite, Moore is the picture of genteel elegance. She's wearing a white, lacy dress and high heels. Her skin is so pale, it seems untouched by the sun.
And yet she is anything but a starched presence. She whoops with laughter every chance she gets.
Despite a career that includes serious, even somber movies like "Safe," "Far From Heaven," "Vanya on 42nd Street" and "The Hours" -- and four Oscar nods -- Moore rarely takes herself seriously.
During the shooting of the downbeat "Freedomland," which was released earlier this year, Moore's co-star, Samuel L. Jackson, marveled at how easily she could turn her emotions on and off.
"At that time Julianne was kind of caught up in 'American Idol' and we'd be standing there ready to shoot and she'd be, like, 'Bo was singing so good last night.' And then the director would go 'Action!' and she would start crying. As soon as he said, 'Cut!' she would go, 'I really hope he wins tonight!' We both dove right into it and came right back out of it, and that was refreshing to me."
Freundlich believes Moore's talent is instinctive. "I think Julie's compassion is what makes her so inspiring as an actress," he says. "She told me that even as a kid when she was reading stories out loud in class, she could always see the whole thing from the perspectives of all of the characters. She's a genuine artist."
Moore and Freundlich met in 1996, while she was appearing in his first movie, "Myth of Fingerprints." At the time, she lived in Los Angeles and he in New York.
"After the movie wrapped, we commuted to see each other 35 weekends in a row," he recalls. "Then I moved out there for eight months while she shot 'The Lost World' and 'Boogie Nights.' But I finally convinced her to move back with me to New York, and we've been here ever since."
As it happens, New York is almost another character in "Trust the Man," a low-budget indie that follows the adventures of two tempestuous couples -- successful actress Rebecca (Moore) and her Mr. Mom husband, Tom (Duchovny), and her slacker younger brother Tobey (Billy Crudup) and his aspiring-novelist girlfriend, Elaine (Maggie Gyllenhaal).
Tobey's commitment issues lead to a fracture in his relationship with Elaine while Rebecca and Tom hit a speed bump when she discovers he cheated on her with a mom at their kids' school.
"I liked playing Rebecca because she's an actress but she just lives a regular life," Moore says. "She has this family and they all live in New York and she goes off to do her job. Bart presents it in a matter-of-fact way.
"I also like how the characters spend a lot of time talking about their marriage, their kids, their friends, their neighborhood. I think it's an interesting film in that it's very realistic-seeming, but it has a Hollywood-type happy ending, which confirms that men can be heroes in their own lives.
"It's a movie that values families and relationships above all else."
Is Moore worried that audiences will think that the Rebecca-Tom relationship is based on her own marriage to Freundlich?
"This is fiction; the infidelity is fiction," she clarifies. "But, sure, there's some parts that are autobiographical. I once almost choked on cake at a Golden Globes bash. Bart put that in the movie. The retainer is mine, only mine. It's not a fake retainer. It's a real retainer."
Working with her kids was a fun experience for Moore, who was happy to discover that Cal was more interested in talking to his tutor than emoting in front of the camera. Liv, meanwhile, proved herself a prime candidate for the family business.
"She's going to be an actress, no doubt," says Moore, a North Carolina native whose father was a military judge and whose mother was a social worker. "She loves costumes and makeup. Everything for her is role-playing in a gigantic way."