LIFE AFFIRMED: An interview with Far From Heaven star Julianne Moore By Ryan Kugler 11/04/02 Part 2 of 2

She could join the NAACP and start volunteering there.

Maybe she will. Maybe she'll get a job. Maybe whatever. You don't know. Some people see it as very hopeful. Some people get very sad.

I guess since I don't know much about the 50s, it just seems like it's a dead end. For Dennis (Quaid, who plays her husband), everyone turns on him and he doesn't have a business anymore.

Yeah, I know, but he moved. He left town and he's going to start over. What's interesting is that Todd leaves everything ambiguous for everybody. Everything is ambiguous in the way that a Sirk film was too. In All That Heaven Allows, Jane Wyman --after Rock Hudson falls off the cliff -- runs to his rescue and they sit in this picture window and she says, "I'm going to be with you darling. I'm going to be with you now." It was always ambiguous, but it was always real. So in the midst of all this melodrama and artifice there's a very real core where you realize people are going to be faced with their difficulties. Faced with real life. There's not a traditional classic happy ending.

How has motherhood changed you as a person?

It's been the most profound event of my life. Motherhood changes you ultimately and wonderfully, and it's made me incredibly happy. As I was saying earlier, the more experiences I have in my personal life, the richer it makes my personal life and then the richer it makes my professional life. It kind of spills over into that.

It takes the focus off yourself.

People always say it takes the focus off yourself, but I don't think it's as simple as that. It's not like I'm sitting at home thinking, "Myself, myself." It's not like that. I have these two wonderful people to love, that I love so much, and they're so extraordinary and so beautiful and they have their own relationships and stuff. Families are like the root of all human experience and probably all modern drama too, so it gives you almost everything.

How would you feel about your children entering the acting arena?

I am very opposed to children acting. I'm very opposed to children working. I think acting is work and you shouldn't have a job when you're a kid, unless you have a job at a frozen yogurt stand when you're 15, or a paper route, or baby-sitting, or that kind of thing. I don't think you should have real adult responsibility, and I think that acting is an adult responsibility.

How old do you think your children will be when they see Boogie Nights?

Obviously, there's a certain point where your kids are going to have access to things beyond your jurisdiction, but it wouldn't be something I'd advise they watch until they were 18 or something.

The Venice Film Festival started all of this Oscar talk. The film is getting really well received. Do you start to think about people's responses to the movie and getting attention for it?

We were so thrilled by Venice. It meant a lot to us because it's a small movie. It's a very specialized movie and it's easy for a movie like this to slip through the cracks. So, when we got those awards, we were kind of shocked and thought maybe there is an audience for this movie. That was our biggest excitement. We went to Toronto with it and now it's in the states, and so it just gives us hope that people are going to be excited and interested in it. At the end of the day, that's what everybody gets excited about -- the awards. It means that people will see the movie. It's gotten so pressurized in the film business. You either have these giant blockbusters with huge advertising campaigns behind them, or you have these tiny movies. People will only see the little tiny movies if they get attention from these prizes, so that's kind of what you hope. You just hope people see it, that's all.

(Read the interview with Far From Heaven director Todd Haynes)

(Read Warren Curry's review of Far From Heaven)

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