Julianne Moore

Julianne Moore Bio

Julie Anne Smith, born December 3, 1960, and known professionally as Julianne Moore, is an American actress and children’s author. Renowned for portraying emotionally troubled and vulnerable women, she has forged a prolific career across independent cinema and mainstream blockbusters since the 1990s. Moore has earned an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, multiple Primetime and Daytime Emmy Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards.

Moore has worked with acclaimed directors and brought nuance to roles in films such as Safe, The Hours, Far from Heaven, and Still Alice, as well as popular franchises including The Hunger Games and Kingsman. Beyond acting, Moore has written children’s books featuring Freckleface Strawberry and is married to director Bart Freundlich, with whom she has two children.

Early Life and Background

Julie Anne Smith was born on December 3, 1960, at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Her father, Peter Moore Smith, was a paratrooper in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War who attained the rank of colonel and became a military judge. Her mother, Anne, née Love, was a psychologist and social worker from Greenock, Scotland, who had migrated with her family to the United States in 1951. Moore has a younger sister and a younger brother, the novelist Peter Moore Smith. Having a Scottish mother, Moore claimed British citizenship in 2011 in her honor.

Due to her father’s occupation, Moore frequently moved around the United States as a child. The family lived in multiple locations including Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Panama, Nebraska, Alaska, New York, and Virginia, and Moore attended nine different schools. The constant moving made her an insecure child, but Moore has remarked that the itinerant lifestyle was beneficial to her career, teaching her that behavior is mutable and that character can change.

When Moore was 16, the family moved from Falls Church, Virginia, where she was attending J.E.B. Stuart High School, to Frankfurt, West Germany. A self-proclaimed good girl, she had planned to become a doctor, but an avid reading habit led her to begin acting in school productions. She appeared in plays including Tartuffe and Medea, and with the encouragement of her English teacher, she chose to pursue a theatrical career. Her parents supported her decision on the condition that she train at a university, and she was accepted into the Boston University College of Fine Arts, graduating in 1983 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in theater.

Path to Acting

Moore moved to Manhattan after graduating and worked as a waitress while registering her stage name with Actors’ Equity. Her first screen role came in 1984, in an episode of the soap opera The Edge of Night. Her break came a year later when she joined the cast of As the World Turns, playing the dual roles of half-sisters Frannie and Sabrina Hughes. She performed on the show until 1988, winning a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Ingenue in a Drama Series. Before leaving, she had a role in the 1987 CBS miniseries I’ll Take Manhattan.

Once she finished her contract, she played Ophelia in a Guthrie Theater production of Hamlet. In 1990, Moore began working with stage director Andre Gregory on a workshop theater production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, an experience she called one of the most fundamentally important of her career. Also in 1990, she made her cinematic debut in Tales from the Darkside: The Movie. Filmmaker Robert Altman saw Moore in the Uncle Vanya production and was sufficiently impressed to cast her in his next project, the ensemble drama Short Cuts (1993), which proved to be her breakthrough role.

Julianne Moore Career

Early Career (1984–1994)

Moore’s first screen role came in 1984 in an episode of the soap opera The Edge of Night, followed by a regular role on As the World Turns from 1985 to 1988, where she earned a Daytime Emmy Award. Her cinematic debut came in 1990 with Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, a low-budget horror she later called terrible. Her next film role, in the 1992 thriller The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, introduced her to a wide audience and caught the attention of several critics.

She continued to play supporting roles throughout 1993 in Body of Evidence, Benny & Joon, and The Fugitive, before being cast by Robert Altman in the ensemble drama Short Cuts. The critically acclaimed film received awards for Best Ensemble Cast at the Venice Film Festival and the Golden Globe Awards, and Moore received an individual nomination for Best Supporting Female at the Independent Spirit Awards.

Breakthrough (1995–2002)

In 1995, Moore was given her first leading role in Todd Haynes’ low-budget film Safe, playing an unhappy suburban housewife who develops multiple chemical sensitivity. The performance earned her an Independent Spirit Award nomination and led Empire magazine to call her perhaps the finest actress of her generation. The romantic comedy Nine Months (1995) was crucial in establishing her as a Hollywood leading lady, and The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) was pivotal in raising her profile as a mainstream star.

Moore’s first Academy Award nomination came for Boogie Nights (1997), in which she played a leading porn actress. She received her second Oscar nomination for The End of the Affair (1999), her first for Best Actress. The year 2002 marked a high point in her career, as she became the ninth performer to be nominated for two Academy Awards in the same year, for Far from Heaven and The Hours. The role in Far from Heaven won her the Best Actress award from 19 different organizations, including the Venice Film Festival.

Established Actress (2003–2017)

Moore made her Broadway debut in 2006 in David Hare’s play The Vertical Hour, directed by Sam Mendes, and won a Primetime Emmy for playing Sarah Palin in the HBO film Game Change in 2012. Her highest-grossing releases came with The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 (2014), The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 (2015), and Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017). She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of an Alzheimer’s patient in Still Alice (2014).

Notable Works and Milestones

Moore’s signature work includes Still Alice, for which she won the Academy Award, Golden Globe, SAG Award, and BAFTA. She has been named Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival, and Venice Film Festival, becoming the second actress in history to achieve the feat. In 2015, Time magazine included her on its Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world, and in 2020, The New York Times ranked her eleventh on its list of the greatest actors of the 21st century.

Julianne Moore Award Nominations

Across her career, Julianne Moore has received five Academy Award nominations, nine Golden Globe nominations, seven Screen Actors Guild nominations, and four BAFTA nominations. Her recognized roles for major nominations came for Boogie Nights, An Ideal Husband, The End of the Affair, Magnolia, Far from Heaven, The Hours, A Single Man, The Kids Are All Right, Game Change, Maps to the Stars, and Still Alice.

Julianne Moore Awards Won

Julianne Moore has won an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Daytime Emmy Award. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Still Alice in 2015, the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama for the same film, and the BAFTA nomination for the role in the same year.

Julianne Moore Family

Moore’s father was Peter Moore Smith, a retired U.S. Army colonel and military judge, and her mother was Anne Love, a Scottish-born psychologist and social worker. Moore has a younger sister and a younger brother, the novelist Peter Moore Smith. She is married to director Bart Freundlich, and the couple has two children together.

Personal Life

Moore’s first marriage was to actor and stage director John Gould Rubin from 1986 to 1995. She began a relationship with Bart Freundlich, her director on The Myth of Fingerprints, in 1996, and they married on August 23, 2003. The couple lives in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, and has two children, a son born in 1997 and a daughter born in 2002. Moore is a politically liberal activist who has endorsed candidates including Barack Obama and Joe Biden, sits on the board of advocates for Planned Parenthood, campaigns for gay rights and gun control, and has served as an Artist Ambassador for Save the Children since 2008.