Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Julianne Moore (2021)

Episode Date: October 17, 2021

Julianne Moore grew up moving around the world with her military dad before making her way to Hollywood as a young actress. Since then she’s had an extraordinary career, including five Academy Award nominations and a win for her performance in Still Alice. In this week’s “Sunday Sitdown,” Willie Geist gets together with Moore to talk about her shift from movies to television with her role in the Stephen King series Lisey’s Story. (Original broadcast date: June 6, 2021)  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks, as always, for clicking and listening along. Got a great one for you this week. Excited to bring you my conversation with Oscar winner, Julianne Moore, especially excited because it is an in-person conversation. We're having more and more of these. People getting vaccinated, willing to come and hang out a little bit. She's promoting her new series for Apple TV Plus called Lecy's Story.

It's based on a Stephen King novel. Stephen King calls it his favorite novel. He wrote the screenplays for every episode was on set, giving direction, giving notes, and encouragement, as you'll hear from Julianne. It is, it's Stephen King. What else can I say? Psychological thriller, a little bit of horror.

You'll hear her describe what the series is all about, but it's actually a hard thing to do, as you can imagine, with the Stephen King book. It's hard to put into words. Just to give you a little visual picture, we are, I think I want to say like the 40th, floor, rooftop bar, midtown Manhattan, beautiful sunny June day, big windows out to the city where Julianne got her start. She was a daughter of a military man, traveled the country and the

world throughout her childhood. You'd hear her talk about that, but started her career in New York City on As the World Turns. Yeah, she won an Emmy for playing one character and then another, the twin sister. She played both. Kind of amazing, right? So we'll talk about the beginning of her career, those early days, and then all the way up through all the movies you know and love and boogie nights and the Big Lobowski and playing Sarah Palin and game change up through her Oscar for Still Alice. Great conversation with a really, really smart actor who's seen a lot, who's lived a lot and has an extraordinary resume and career to talk about. So I hope you enjoy our conversation right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast with Oscar winner, Julianne Moore. Julianne, great to see you. Thank you for doing this. Thanks for having me. I have to say, this is one of the two or three interviews I've done in person. Really?

Since this all ended. And it's great to just be in a room with somebody and have a conversation. It's new for me too. We've all been in our houses, right? We'll have to sharpen our social skills to be sure this works. Yeah, yeah. Before we talk about the show and the series, how was the last year and change been for you? and for your family. It's been interesting. I mean, you know, both of my kids

were supposed to graduate, you know, one from high school, one from college, and everything just shut down so abruptly. And it was tough for them, I think, in terms of that big life transition and for us, too. But then, on the other hand,

we were all safe, we were all healthy, we had a place to go. We like being together, you know, so it was really okay. But I just feel, I feel gratified that we're all started to come out of this a little bit.

Yeah, that's how I feel too. We're the lucky ones. Really. get to work and our families are healthy. Yeah. The pandemic played into Lisi for sure, right? So you stop in March of 2020. Yeah. And then you go away for six months, I think.

Yep. And start pick up again shooting in the fall. What was that like for you as an actor? Because I imagine you were locked in. Yeah. You're in a zone. And then you have to kind of step out of it for half a year and go back in. Well, it was crazy.

Well, back to my children because, of course, I always base everything around that. My son played basketball at Davidson College, and they were supposed to play the A-10. So they were in Brooklyn at the Barclays Center because their first game was going to be, I guess it would have been March 11th, because I think it was March 10th. Anyway, he came to visit me because I was in Brooklyn at Steiner and brought two of his friends, and they're all really nice boys. And I kept telling them, don't shake hands with anybody because we don't know what's going to happen. And that was the night that everybody said, this is looking bad.

I think we're going to shut down. They shut down the A10 the next day. He went home, and on Friday we were done, and everything was finished. So, yeah, then it all went quiet, and I think our fear was we weren't going to be able to finish it, you know. So I think when we came back in September, we were actually able to do it, and everybody came back. Everybody was available. We were just so glad. I don't think we even thought about how hard it would be to resume something that we had done so many months before.

Yeah, yeah. Well, how do you keep that as an actor, though? is that a hard? Because I imagine when you're doing a movie, you're here the whole time. And then you guys step out and step back in. Yeah, you are. But that's your job. You know, it's your job to kind of maintain that thread. And I imagine people who do like, you know, series television that when they have a big hiatus, they have to kind of go back to something. And I, and like I said, I think we're, I was so happy to have the opportunity. And I loved all of these actors and the director and the crew. We were, it was sort of a, it was a real love fest. So it felt, Great. It felt great to go back. By the way, your son playing hoops at Davidson. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, I just threw that in. No, I love that.

He was a walk-on, so it wasn't, you know, I mean, but it was an amazing achievement. Division I won basketball. Yes, thank you. And by the way, where Steph Curry played, no less. So let's talk about the series. I told you, I watched the first episode. It's Stephen King. He has said it's his favorite book, with no pressure there.

Right. How do you explain the story to people who are thinking about watching it? I know. It's a hard thing to kind of sum up in a couple of sentences, but it's about a woman who has lost her husband. He was a famous writer, much like a Stephen King kind of character, somebody who wrote supernatural stories. But it's really the story about their relationship, about what it means to be in an intimate relationship over a long period of time. And when we find her at the beginning, there are people who are pressuring her to give up her husband's papers, and she won't let go of them. And then there's a stalker, played by Dane Dahan, the wonderful actor, kind of a fan, a super fan.

And then she, her sisters, Joan Allen and Jennifer Jason Lee, both magnificent actors. And Clive Owen plays my husband. And it's just, it was a great group of people, really, really wonderful. Pablo Lorraine is a genius. And Darius Conji, our DP. So we were lucky. Were you familiar with this book and this material before it came to you? I wasn't.

The script, the screenplays came to me. And Stephen wrote the screenplays, and I did know how attached he was to it, and I read the book after that. So my first contact with Stephen was after I read the screenplays, and he said he wanted to speak to me on the phone, and we talked about the character. And I think for him, as somebody who's been in a long and really important relationship, you know, I think that's what's resonant about the story. And there are also lots of literary references that are important to him. So it's about kind of his work and his life. So what do you see in Lisi that you love? When you read that script and you say, okay, I kind of get her, I see where this is headed.

What do you look for in a character like that? It's interesting. People always ask me what I look for in a character, but mostly I look for a narrative. I look for story. I'm like, how are we telling this story? And how does it pertain to all of us? And what I love about it, there are literally four timelines in this. Super complicated.

So you have the present day, you have sort of the recent past, you have their early marriage, and then you have their childhood. So in a sense, it's like, it's like that experience that we all have about going through life, that wherever you are, you carry your past and your memories with you, and those things feel as real as the present. So it's like, how do you negotiate that as a person? How do you move on? We don't know what the future is, but we carry our past in this big kind of thing on our back. So I love that we're always sifting through these timelines in an effort to understand these people and their relationships. You mentioned Stephen King wrote all the episodes himself.

So he's on set with you. What is that experience like? Did just have access to the source of all the material? Of course, it's really intimidating initially, you know. But he's so lovely and really generous and so collaborative and just a magnificent person and creative and excited by creativity, you know? So there was only, I remember there was one day I had something really, really emotional to do, and I knew he was in the next room, and I saw him,

I said, because we would chat a lot, and I saw him catch my eye, because he always wants to say something encouraging, but I was still in the middle of this emotional thing, so I was just like, because I wasn't ready to, you know. But he's, oh, and he would text you if he saw Dailies and loved them, and he's just, he's an amazing eye. Then the cast, as you said, it was just incredible. We were talking about Joan Allen and Jennifer Jason Lee,

the three of your sisters in the series. I imagine when you saw their names on the call sheet, you said we've got something here. I flipped out. I admire them both so much, I mean, as actors and also as people. I mean, they're just incredible people, and the depth of their talent is enormous. And to have them, it was just really something

to do a scene with them to turn to look at these giant talents and to have that kind of support as an actor. I mean, it was just, they make everything effortless. The, it's, I guess horror maybe simplifies it too much. So the psychological thriller and all the layers you talked about. I'm always curious what it's like to act inside of one of those worlds where it is scary and so there's something around the corner or you're not quite sure where it's headed. What is that like for you as an actor to do? You've done some, but probably nothing exactly like this.

You know, it's not, you mean, is the question, am I scared when I'm doing it? No, not physically scared, but what's it like to just be inside a Stephen King? universe as an actor? Well, one of the things that I love about his writing and the world that he creates is that, and I think one of the reasons he's so incredibly popular, he has his feet very firmly planted

in modern culture, in popular culture. So when you read his books, you're like, wow, this is so familiar, this is so real. This seems like me and my family, my friends, and the small town that I come from, and the car that I drive, and so you get very rooted in that. But for Stephen, you know, there's

that reality and that imagination is like right here. So it's almost like there's like a membrane between the real world and this imaginary world, the supernatural world. And in Stevens universe, you can permeate it. And I think that it's something that as human beings we kind of feel is there. Like you look at our obsession with, I don't know, monsters and aliens and magic and seances and ghosts and, you know, I think we have this sense of other, there's this otherness. And he really explores that. So to be acting in it, it's not challenging because I think it's part

of what we, you know, there's an aspect of religion that's even like that. So it's something that we're, that's in us, naturally. Yeah, there's something mystical about that. The book on you as an actor is that you play troubled women who have not been seen, perhaps. You have you been reading my Wikipedia page because I think it's the first line. Oh, is it? No, I swear that's not off Wikipedia. It's a gross generalization, I know, but it may be more fair as complex women who haven't been seen fully. Is that a fair assessment? Do you see that in VC? I think that's most people, right? Yeah. It's everybody. I think that's, I think that's the, that's the nature of being a human being is that everyone is complex. Everyone is dimensional.

Everyone has stories that people don't know about, right? So, so, so we are, we are all of that, and we're most of us only partially seen. I mean, we're lucky if we're seeing, right? You know, that's, and that's what we strive for in our relationships, and our relationships in the world, our relationships to our partners with our friends, you know, So I think that's the nature of being a human being. Yeah, absolutely. Do you like this sort of the limited series format as an actor where,

I mean, because each episode is movie, it's film quality. Yeah. But you get to tell an eight-hour story. It's amazing. I have to say, I didn't have any experience with it, really, and it's great. Because when you're working in, I like a narrative, like a beginning, the middle and an end, you know. And so in a movie, the narrative is generally two hours long, and there are lots of things you can't get in there.

not that that's bad, but it's just that's that format. And this format, certainly in terms of a novelization, you can get a lot of stuff in there. And it really is fun to explore it that way. I was reading, not on your Wikipedia, in an actual interview. It's cool. It's cool. If you were, it's totally cool. Maybe a quick brow. Yeah, like, just me at Google.

But you said some, you've said many times, something interesting about how you became the actor you are, which is the way you grew up, this sort of itinerant childhood. And Sylvie, my producer and I were talking, we interviewed Michael Douglas a couple weeks ago. He said something similar, which is that child of divorce, different coasts, different people all the time, which is that you have to move in and out of these different worlds and adapt and learn how to act. So how much of your childhood moving around the world and moving around the country fed who you are right now? Oh, gosh. I mean, I think that people talk about that with actors, you know, military kids, preachers kids, like corporate kids that have moved that moved around when they were transferred.

Yeah, because it teaches you. I think that, I mean, for me, I think what I saw was that people believed that identity was solid and somehow about where you were from, right? that it was like, you are this. We define ourselves by the town where we grow up, where we go to school, people we're friends with, and it feels like it's, that's somehow you. And it's not, you know, because it's changeable, it's mutable, because you go to another town and people have different kinds of behaviors. But that doesn't mean that they're different from you. It just means that their behavior is different.

So you're always looking at behavioral differences, but then you're looking for a universal, of experience, you know? So it's like that's why you can have a, I mean, that's what's interesting about how we've become much more global in terms of what we're seeing and, and what we're relating to. That's why you can look at a movie in Japan and that it will feel so familiar to you in a human sense, maybe different culturally, but you identify with it. So that's what's kind of fascinating about it, is you're always looking at what behavior is

versus what an essential self is. You couldn't have known at the time when you're a teenager, but you were sort of training yourself to be an actor. Is it true you want to be a doctor? Yeah. That was the plan. Yeah, don't have the math skills, though. It's funny how many people grow up wanting to be a doctor,

and then they get to that point of, hmm, I guess I'm not cut up for mid-school. I realize I think I like to pretend to be a doctor. My skills lie in the pretending part. A little bit easier. Yes, yes. So at what point did that, that, that switch flip for you.

Was it in college when you got into performing arts? Or when did you decide? I was the kid, you know, you know, you always had to have something to do after school. And I couldn't, I didn't do sports. I wasn't very good. It wasn't very outdoorsy. I never made my, my girlfriend, Chris and I, used to try out for, like, cheerleading and drill team. We were the only two girls who didn't make drill team.

Come on, really? They took like 60 girls. They were like, you two? No. Oh, I couldn't just added two more? No, and all you do is walk and drill too, right? So, but anyway, so the place would, so for after school, I were like, well, I guess I'll try out for the play. You know, so that was my after school thing, you know, and I would try out for the play, and I'd get a part, and that's what I did.

And did that at various schools, and then we moved to Germany, actually, we were living in Virginia and moved to Germany, and I had a teacher, the English teacher, who was the theater coach, was doing, she was doing Tartouf, Molière's Tartouf, which is pretty ambitious for a high school. And I got a part and she said to me, you know, I think you could do this for a living. And I was like, I'm like, I'd never seen a professional play. I'd never met an actor and I didn't know that you could do it for a living. And I really liked it. And I was like, well, okay. And she gave me a magazine with some schools in it. And I came home to my parents and I'm like, I'm going to go to acting school.

I mean, it really was like that. I mean, that's what was so crazy about it. So I did it with very little knowledge. about what was in front of me. Right. It's probably the best way to do it. Well, two things jump out. Thank God for the drill team.

Because you never would have been an actor if you'd made the drill team. I'd still be marching. Walking in formation. Maybe, yes, exactly. Doing a sharp, like a right-angle turn. I don't know what that career is exactly, but something. And also that you had a teacher who told you something you didn't know about yourself.

It was amazing. She changed my life. She changed my life. And I read something years later about kids. And they said that, as a parent, I'm always thinking about this, that children certainly need to have opportunities and they need to have their parents encourage them. But one thing that will really change a child's course

is to have an authority figure outside of their family, notice something about that. Say that this is a skill that you have or notice their interest and help direct them. And that's really what it was. She was the one I wouldn't have thought it was possible. That's amazing. Yeah.

Because your mom's always going to tell you you're great. Of course. Someone else does. You're like, oh, wow. Maybe I can do this. Right. Yeah. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast.

Stick around to hear more from Julie Ann Moore right after the break. Welcome back to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Now more of my conversation with Julianne Moore. So when you come to New York in the 1980s, what's it like for you, those early jobs? It's so scary. I mean, you know. I mean, I literally, you know, came to New York with, like, a dress with puffy sleeves, a little pair of high heels walking around.

I mean, and I was like, oh, it's so dirty. Dropping into 1980s, New York. Yeah, it was 19th, New York. So it was great, though. I mean, it seemed, I just was like, let me give this a shot. You know, I'll just give it a shot. And I got a job at a restaurant, and I had an agent. and I auditioned and I got my first job pretty quickly after I got here by,

by like, I was doing a play in regional theater by November, and I got here in June. It was like, you know, about six months or something. Yeah. So you did the regular waiting tables and all the things that a struggling actor does. And then when you get on soap opera and you have an amazing run and you win an Emmy and that had to be sort of vaulted you into a new, where you could say, okay, I can do this for a living. This is a job.

It was kind of amazing because my first year I did, I waited tables and I did some plays and I did some like a little bit of commercial work. And then the next year I got this soap opera and I was on it for three years. And to be able to support yourself as an actor. Do you know, walk to work? I lived on the Upper West Side. I would, you know, I walked down to the studio every day. And yeah, it was crazy to have a job and not have to do anything else. Yeah.

Yeah. And then you hop over to movies. I can still see you with Dr. Richard Kimball when he's holding up the film in the fugitive. I was like, okay. And then I think it's fair to say, and you'll correct me if I'm wrong, but 1997 was like a huge. You're in Jurassic Park so you can do the blockbuster. And then Boogie Nights, of course, was earned you an Oscar nomination. Did that feel like a moment or a year where your career took a leap?

It wasn't that year for me, where I felt like a real change. It was actually earlier. It was like 1994 because I did I did Vanya in 42nd Street Safe and Shortcut. So there were all these three little movies basically I've been somebody who worked in in television and in

in an off-Broadway theater and stuff but then so I went from being fat to suddenly having a film career and that was crazy. So that was a big that was the big change was having those three movies come out at once and then suddenly I was like I had a film career, which was different, which was something that I didn't anticipate happening. Did boogie nights change things for you? The Oscar nomination? The Oscar nomination certainly was a big deal.

I mean, that was a very big deal. Yeah, it was something that, and also it was really crazy because I, my son was born that year, that, that, that, that 1990, December of 1997. So I basically was in a hay, like I was sort of, you know, I've done a bunch of movies and then I was having this baby. And then I was in the haze of having had a baby in early December. And then all this nomination stuff came out. And I was like, what? I mean, I was just literally like, I, you know, I, so it was a weird, it was a very strange experience to have a newborn and then have all the stuff. I was kind of, I just really didn't know what happened.

Yeah, you couldn't focus on it probably. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it was great, you know. And the people always talk about the Big Lobowski. I was watching some clips of that. Did that feel special in the moment?

I mean, you couldn't have imagined that it was going to be this cult classic. Not at all. Well, oddly, I keep talking about my kids. I was pregnant during the Big Lobowski. I actually got pregnant during the Big Lebowski. So I was so sick on that movie. But yes, it felt very special.

I mean, the minute I read that script, I was like, holy cow, this is amazing. It's genius. It's so, so funny. And then, I mean, everybody will tell you, Then it came, it actually, I remember going to the premiere because my brother and my sister-in-law babysat my son. He was just a couple months old. And we went to the premiere and I'm like, this is hysterical.

And then the reviews came out and they killed it and it tanked. The movie tanked. And the reviews were bad? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, that's weird. I thought it was really funny.

And then it was just one of those movies that then slowly over the years, people were like, Lobowski, Lobowski, Lobowski, and it just like took off. So just goes to Sholia. You're so funny in that movie. Thank you. It must be fun to play something just so out there. I love that character. You can just go.

Oh, she's so funny. But she also felt very rooted, and she was. She was based on somebody that they had met, like, at a film festival, performance artist. And I also felt like I knew people like that. People, you know, performance art was a very big thing, certainly, like, in the 80s and the early 90s. And then you'd go to those kind of shows and see these outrageous acts. So I, yeah, I felt like she had some, there's some truth there. Yeah, you go to those loft spaces in Tribeca and there's some funky thing going on.

I swear I'm not, we've done Wikipedia. I'm not going to go through your entire IMDB page, I promise. But I think a lot of people will associate you with game change with Sarah Palin. Yeah. How did you get into that? Were you excited about playing that character? I said, yes, before I even knew what I'd done. I was on the phone with Jay Roach and he was like, do you want to be.

want to do this. I'm like, yes. And then I hung up and I was like, oh no! Oh, no! Um, but then I, it's the one time I remember I, I had two months to prepare and I literally canceled everything because I was so afraid that I wouldn't be able to do it. So I started, you know, with like, you know, listening to her voice and watching every, you know, every recording I could and reading all the books and watching that TV show that she did and interviewing everybody. And I, you know, literally did nothing. I didn't go out. I picked up my kids from school and had dinner with them, and I didn't go anywhere. I just spent all of my time kind of studying it. Because you don't want to be sort of the cartoon version of it. You don't. And also the minute you lose the audience's respect,

like you, if you show up and you don't sound like this person, if you don't look like this person, you don't behave like them, they can't watch the story. They're just going like, this is fake. Yeah. You know, so. Did you ever have any contact with her in that process? No, no, no, no. But with a lot of people who had worked with her. Yes. You know, so people were really generous with their time and with their observations. And I was able to say like, well, what happened? Will you tell me what happened? Will you show me what happened? Right. And people did. Is that hard to play a real life person where everybody has an image in their mind? Yeah, I think so. I think certainly when somebody's very present in the public eye, you know, when they're, it's, if you have no reference for

for something, then it's like, you can do whatever you want. But there's, there, it's exciting, though, too, because you do have boundaries. And so you're, you're aiming for something. And when you're working with somebody who's the talent is Jay Roach, too, who's a real partner, we were able to do it together. There'd be times when I'm like, we would stop. And I'd say, no, let me, let me look at a reference. Let's, let me listen to something. Let's look at that, and let's go back and let's make sure that we're really precise with what we're doing. Well, for what it's worth, my friend Nicole Wallace, who was her handler. gave you very high marks.

Well, Nicole Wallace is one of my very helpful friends. She was somebody who gave me a lot of information, and I wouldn't have been able to do without Nicole, honestly. She saw it up close. Yes, yes, that's right. So she'd be the person that I would say, like, what happened? Will you show me what happened?

Yeah. I know, she still kind of tenses up when you asked her about that year. And then shortly thereafter, you win the Oscar for Still Alice. You'd been nominated before. Was that gratifying for you because of, obviously, that character was so complex and it was such a heavy role to play. But that must have felt great. It's amazing. I mean, it was amazing.

It was talking about, yeah, beyond gratifying. Because, you know, honestly, this is an award that's given to you by your peers. And I think we all know in any world that we live in or where we work that we care very much about what our coworkers think, how they feel. about what you know what we've done so so it's our way in show business of saying like hey that was you know that was that was great work that was a great job so yes it's obviously really gratified you obviously already had the respect of actors and audiences but does it change things to say Oscar winner julianne more it's like it's a weird statistic thing my my kids were my son again was talking about like being in stat class and somebody talking about like when a

a Nobel, winning an Oscar, or winning a Pulitzer, or something like that. Anyway, so you realize that they're cultural, it's a cultural thing, too. So, yes, it still seems weird to me that it actually happened. I was joking about your IMDB page, but honestly reading it, it's hard to know where to begin. You've done so much, and you have such a breadth of different roles in your career. Is that, do you chalk that up to just picking the right things and finding good stories? and obviously your talent comes into it, but longevity like that doesn't happen to everybody.

I really like what I do. I really love what I do, and I didn't anticipate caring about it so much, loving it so much, and loving it for so long. I mean, I think that there, sometimes people feel like, I think we feel like sometimes in our culture

that you're going to do something where I'm going to get sick of it and be done with it. You know, it's like, eh, but it's been, it's really fascinating. And the more I do it, the less I feel like I know, You know, there's always a little bit further to go with something. I'm really excited by the work that people around me do. I'm interested in that kind of dramatic or chromatic storytelling. I don't know.

I like it. You know, I mean, and I think it's been rewarding to be able to have done, to like gone to after school, you know, trial for the school play and have that kind of interest carry through my life. Well, on behalf of your fans, thank you. for not joining the drill team or not being accepted on the drill team. I think you're going to have to thank all those girls that didn't vote me on. It felt cruel at the time.

They were so pretty and they were so cool. And Chris and I didn't make it. Look at you now. It all worked out, Julian. I can march in my backyard. Thank you for your time. This was such a pleasure. Thank you.

Nice to talk to you. You too. I mean, it's true. She makes that drill team. there's no Julianne more Oscar winner giving us all these great movies. My big thanks again to Julianne for our conversation. You can catch new episodes of her latest series, Leacy's Story, on Apple TV Plus. And my thanks to all of you for tuning in again this week. If you want to hear more of the conversations with my guests each and every week, be sure to click subscribe so you never miss an

episode. And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.