Julianne Moore can make a voice, a gesture or a change in breathing do the work of a speech. We rate her most highly with Todd Haynes, who gives those small choices room to unsettle us.
Fi1m perspective
In May December (2023), Julianne Moore gives Gracie a faint lisp and tears that arrive when she is cornered. She seems entirely persuaded that she is the person being wronged. Moore makes each small adjustment clear enough for Natalie Portman’s Elizabeth to learn it, without making Gracie seem conscious of performing. We laughed uneasily as Elizabeth picked up the lisp and the tilt of the head, because Moore had made them feel so particular to one woman. Todd Haynes gets the fullest use of her precision here.
The move from supporting work in Short Cuts (1993) to the lead in Haynes’s Safe (1995) was a decisive one. Boogie Nights (1997) brought another breakthrough, while Far from Heaven (2002) took her back to Haynes. She has continued to move between independent and studio films. His recurring interest in women constrained by their surroundings suits an actor who can show, through a voice or a gesture, how difficult it is to feel at ease.
May December also gives her useful help from the clothes and the framing. April Napier dresses Moore and Portman in similar washed pastels, while Blauvelt repeatedly places them in the same mirror. The resemblance makes the copying more disconcerting, and neither actor has to explain the joke. Charles Melton remains our chief reason to recommend the film, but Moore and Portman supply much of its unpleasant comedy.
The writing is less helpful in The Room Next Door (2024). Playing Ingrid opposite Tilda Swinton, Moore registers fear through her hands and breathing. Pedro Almodóvar gives her the difficult job of listening, then hands her dialogue that tells us what her face has already made clear. She cannot make those carefully composed paragraphs sound spontaneous, though there is enough feeling in her physical performance to suggest what fewer words might have achieved.
In the series Sirens (2025), her Michaela Kell makes the attraction of a wealthy circle believable. Moore supplies a persuasive reason for people to want to belong, though the programme insists on reminding us how cultish it is. Meghann Fahy is its chief pleasure, and the changes of tone are sometimes clumsy, but Moore gives the comedy an assurance it needs. We would start with May December, provided an uncomfortable laugh is welcome.
Biography
Julianne Moore is an American actor. She was born Julie Anne Smith on 3 December 1960 in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
After studying theatre at Boston University, Moore began her career in television, appearing as a regular on the soap opera As the World Turns from 1985 to 1988. Her film breakthrough came with Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993). Subsequent roles include Maude Lebowski in The Big Lebowski (1998), Sarah Harding in The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), and Clarice Starling in Hannibal (2001).
Moore has appeared as Gracie in May December (2023), Ingrid in The Room Next Door (2024), and Michaela Kell in the series Sirens (2025). She has also voiced characters in The Simpsons.
