"That's Moore Like It!"

Julianne Moore is an actress who knows how to take chances. It was taking a chance that led her to a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role as a porn actress for the film Boogie Nights.

It was even more chance-taking that led Moore to two Best Actress nominations for her roles as an ex-mistress in The End Of The Affair and a 1950's suburban housewife who has an interracial affair in Far From Heaven, as well as a second Best Supporting Actress nomination for a role as a gay housewife in The Hours. Now, the 49-year old actress continues to push the envelope with a role as Catherine Stewart in the erotic thriller Chloe.

Julianne first discussed how she came to working with the film's director Atom Egoyen, whose previous works include films like Speaking Parts, Exotica, Felicia's Journey, and Where The Truth Lies.

"I always wanted to," Moore recalls, "I met him at the Toronto Film Festival years ago in the early nineties. We both started at the same time. I went over and introduced myself and said, I'd love to work with you someday and he was a fan of mine as well and then, this came up. And I remember getting a call saying, 'Hey, Atom is doing this thing.' And I said, oh, wow! This is great!"

In Chloe, Moore's character Catherine encounters an escort, Chloe, played by Amanda Seyfried, whom she uses to try and seduce her husband David, played by Liam Neeson, when she suspects David of having an affair.

"Her first line when she meets Chloe in the bar is, 'I think my husband would like you,'" Julianne says, "So she sees this girl and she's young and she's very beautiful and she thinks that's exactly the kind of girl my husband would respond to."

"So she wants to know what is she like," she continues, "What is it that he sees in her, so the closer she gets

"That's Moore Like It!"

to Chloe, the more she feels she's next to David, like she's getting closer to David than she has in years, because she's trying to understand him through this girl until she ends up in a completely different sort of position. But that's what it is, how do I know him better, by knowing this girl, because she's inaccessible to him somehow. This woman is in love with her husband."

However, the relationship between Catherine and Chloe soon turns romantic and develops into an affair. However, the romance is portrayed in a far more nuanced way than is typical for films like this, especially regarding a same sex one.

"It's different," she says, "We're talking about intimacy and sometimes when you talk about intimacy, people assume that you are talking about sexual intimacy. But there's an emotional quality to their intimacy that has to do with their conversation and their basic receptivity to one another. Now what they turn into personally obviously is very different. They are having completely subjective experiences, but that doesn't mean their not incredibly receptive to one another and it clearly creates something in-between them. And that's what love and sex and intimacy and all that is. Someone who is listening to you, hearing you, there for you, that's the person you end up having a relationship with, sexual or just emotional or whatever."

"I don't know if that has to do with gender necessarily," Moore adds, "I think if you talk to anyone, especially someone who's been involved in a relationship for a very long time, there's so many things that eventually fade away. People talk about looks a lot, I notice, when people talk about relationships and stuff, and sometimes, I think, wow, after a while, you don't even remember what somebody looks like if you've been together long enough. But not in a bad way, just in a way that stuff does become soft around the edges."

Moore says she had little

"That's Moore Like It!"

trouble breaking the considerably younger Seyfried out of her shell for the film's love scenes.

"I didn't need to," Julianne says, "She was fine. I don't know what she's talking about. She was totally fine and she was a great acting partner, very available, very present, not afraid at all, to my eye. If she was, she certainly didn't reveal it and she was somebody that was very dependable."

Julianne also says that the suspicion of Catherine regarding her husband David's fidelity to her is one she's found all too familiar in the life experiences of her friends.

"It's interesting," she says, "One of the things I thought was interesting, too, is having been married for a long time, having a lot of friends who have been married for a long time, I can't tell you the phone calls I've gotten from somebody, saying, 'Listen, I have to talk to you about this because I think he's doing X.' And then, you say to them, 'Have you talked to him about it?' 'No, I haven't. What do you think?' And I think women do that a lot."

"I think we turn to our friends and say, 'I don't know. He was out really late, do you think he was seeing somebody?' or 'Is this happening?'" Moore continues, "There is a tendency in relationships to sometimes turn out for information or share information with a girlfriend before you talk to your husband about it. I think a lot of people do it. Obviously, this is an extended case. I don't know if it's necessarily realistic, this is a film, what she does, but I have seen a lot of people, outside the marriage, ask for advice or just going to them first."

However, Moore claims she does not see Chloe or films in general as cautionary tales.

"I don't ever see films as cautionary or lesson-giving," she believes, "You don't ever want to be that way because that assumes the film knows

"That's Moore Like It!"

more than the audience. I think that people come to the movies to have an emotional experience and I think to have their emotional experience through the film. Whatever they come away with, they could come away thinking, wow, I was going to do that thing and now I'm not going to do that anymore."

"But more likely, I see films, not to be highfalutin or anything, but I see movies more as a meditation for people," Julianne continues, "So it kind of allows you to think about certain emotional situations. The best conversation, I think, you can have after a film is, 'Oh, I'd never do that.' 'Oh, really? Oh, I would?' 'Would you really?' That's kind of what you want it to inspire, that kind of thought and dialogue. That's what movies are for. They're for us to project our own feelings onto."

Julianne's roles have been consistent in how they bring up important issues regarding relationships, whether they be gay or straight. However, she says she does not believe she's particularly fearless about the choice of roles she's made, but believes it's all part of the territory of being an actor.

"I just feel like I'm an actress," Moore explains, "I always say, I get that brave or fearless and stuff a lot, like, oh, your fearless, well, I'm not fearless if I'm not scared. I don't feel that acting's particularly scary. I really like acting. I love it when things are going well, that makes me excited and it's fun and feelings are interesting, particularly in acting, where it's pretend. Let's face it, you're creating a story. There's a container for all that and there's all these people and these feelings and these words. That's what's really fun. For me, getting scared would be bungee-cord-jumping or I don't even like diving, because I don't like the water hitting my head. It feels horrible. I don't like to ski, it's too fast, motorboats are terrifying.

"That's Moore Like It!"

Then, I would say, wow, look at me, I was fearless, I just did that stuff, but I don't feel that way about acting."

"It's not scary. It's always interesting," she continues, "That's the great thing about being an actor is that you find yourself in certain situations that you maybe never would have been in or would have never really considered. The thing about travel or any kind of exploration is you find the differences, but you look for the universality as well. So it's always compelling. The fact that it's different and it's human. All the things that I'm interested in movies are about relationships and families and friends and people you love. And so, all those explanations are really fascinating for me."

Recently, Moore had the chance to come full circle as an actress when she made a cameo as one of two twins she played on the soon-to-be-ending long-running soap opera As The World Turns, which was the actress's first big break.

"They were such wonderful people," Julianne says, "They were great to me. It was my first big job and they were wonderful and incredibly professional and very supportive and loving and it was a great job for me. And so, when they said the show is going off the air, it was incredibly sad, because for one thing, you don't want to see anything end like that."

"And also, all those people are losing their jobs, that stinks, that sucks, no matter what it is," she continues, "So I was happy to go back and glad to be there near the end of it and glad to see the people who played my parents and the woman who played my sister and to see a couple of the crew members who were still there. It was cool. You're really rarely afforded an opportunity to do that and also to thank people, too."

Finally, Julianne revealed what else she has out next.

"The Kids Are Alright,"

"That's Moore Like It!"

Moore says, "More gender stuff. Kids is very different. Kids is a comedy about two moms and it's very sweet and really funny."