The lovely and talented Julianne Moore turned 52 this December 3rd. Born in 1960 as Julie Ann Smith, Moore got her big break after winning a Daytime Emmy Award in 1988 for her performance in the soap opera As the World Turns. In the early 90s, she received several supporting roles in films, including The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992), Benny and Joon (1993), and most notably in Robert Altman’s Short Cuts (1993).
Her standout performance in Short Cuts earned her a Supporting Actress nomination at the Independent Spirit Awards and led to larger starring roles by the middle-to-end of the decade.
Some of her films in the next few years included Roommates (1995), Nine Months (1995), Assassins (1995), The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), and Boogie Nights (1997), for which she received her first Academy Award nomination (Supporting Actress) playing a vulnerable adult film star. She followed Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights by starring as the feminist artist Maude Lebowski in the Coen brother’s cult classic, The Big Lebowski (1998). And though she would star in Gus Van Sant’s disastrous Pyscho remake (1998), she would bounce back nicely the following year with five films including Robert Altman’s Cookie’s Fortune and Neil Jordan’s The End of the Affair, the former of which she received a Golden Globe nomination, the latter of which she received a Globe and Oscar nomination (Lead Actress). But, in my opinion, the pinnacle of her monstrous year would be her turn in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, for which she received a SAG nom.
Moore started the following decade by taking over the role of Clarice Starling in Hannibal(2001), the same character Jodie Foster had made famous in the Oscar winning film The Silence of the Lambs. She was double-nominated for her two films of 2002, Far From Heaven (Lead) and The Hours (Supporting). Among others, she starred in Freedomland (2006), Children of Men (2006), The Golden Man (2007), Blindness (2008), and A Single Man (2009) to round out the decade. She received her fifth Golden Globe nomination for A Single Man.
In 2010, she starred opposite Annette Bening in The Kids Are All Right, which would go on to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, and Moore received Globe and BAFTA nominations (among a slew of other citations) for her performance. She next starred in Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011) and the HBO drama Game Change, in which Moore played the 2008 vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin. She received raves for her performance, and wound up winning the Emmy Award for Leading Actress in a Miniseries or Movie as a result.
Julianne Moore has several projects in the works, and will next be seen in the remake of the horror film, Carrie, this March.
My Circuit 3 for Julianne Moore:
- Magnolia (1999)
- The Big Lebowski (1998)
- Boogie Nights (1997)
What are your three favorite/best Julianne Moore films? You can view her entire filmography here.
Related Stories:
Tags: Boogie Nights, Children of Men, circuit 3, Circuit 3: Julianne Moore, Far from Heaven, Julianne Moore, Magnolia, Magnolia movies, The Big Lebowski, the hours, The Kids Are All Right
16 Comments
1. Far From Heaven
2. Game Change
3. Boogie Nights
Terence Johnson(Quote) (Reply)
1. Far From Heaven
2. The End of the Affair
3. Savage Grace
Silrone Lima(Quote) (Reply)
1. Far From Heaven
2. Boogie Nights
3. Safe
Wayne B.(Quote) (Reply)
1. The Hours
2. Far from heaven
3. Children of men
Mario Arias(Quote) (Reply)
1. Far from Heaven
2. Safe
3. The End of the Affair
HM: Children of Men
Kel D(Quote) (Reply)
Only three? Shit, this is hard…
1. Far From Heaven
2. The Kids Are All Right (1,000 times better than Bening’s overblown performance)
3. Vanya on 42nd Street
koook160 (Robert MacFarlane)(Quote) (Reply)
LOVE her. I was about eight or nine when I first saw her – in The Hand That Rocks The Cradle – and thought she totally stole every scene she was in. What personality! Julianne is fearless and genuine, plus she´s beautiful and magnetic – how could one not fall in love with her!?
She was by far the most deserving to win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 1998 – for Boogie Nights, and was again deserving to win, IMO, for The Hours, in 2003. Despite being subtle in The End of the Affair, she created a perfect combination of emotional confusion and erotic tension for her character – she is just so sexually charged yet subdued in a very natural, realistic way.
I do question her choices now and again – but then even Meryl has chosen awkwardly in the past (i.e. with Prime and Lions for Lambs). I am sure that Julianne will win her VERY deserved Oscar, and that it will be for a VERY deserving performance. She´s also one of those people who I never want to see getting old…
1. Boogie Nights
2. The Hours
3. The End of the Affair
Mikael(Quote) (Reply)
Magnolia, Boogie Nights and Big Lebowski for me!
Barry Burns(Quote) (Reply)
Though I am very ashamed of not having scene Far From Heaven, yet, her performance in Magnolia is magical, only surpassed by Tom Cruises’s in the same movie. Absolutely amazing…
moviewatcher(Quote) (Reply)
My Faves – A Single Man, Far From Heaven and The Kids are All Right
HM: The Big Lebowski
Chelsea DalPra(Quote) (Reply)
1. Children of Men
2. Boogie Nights
3. The Big Lebowski
Jeremy DC(Quote) (Reply)
1. Boogie Nights
2. Magnolia
3. The Hours
John Rivera(Quote) (Reply)
I’ll do a top 5 so I can feel better about including a TV movie:
1. Magnolia
2. Game Change
3. Boogie Nights
4. Far From Heaven
5. The Kids Are All Right
Joey Magidson(Quote) (Reply)
1. Boogie Nights
2. Magnolia
3. Children of Men TIED WITH Far From Heaven
Evan(Quote) (Reply)
1. Magnolia
2. The Lost World: Jurassic Park (Like ‘Temple of Doom,’ an absolute guilty pleasure of mine I can’t help but love)
3. The Fugitive
Joseph Braverman(Quote) (Reply)
Your guilty pleasure is understandable, my friend. The first JP film is still one of my favorite movies of the 90s. One of the last magical Spielberg films, IMO. Just awesome. I enjoyed the sequels enough just due to how much I love the first one.
Mark Johnson(Quote) (Reply)