page_title: Julianne Moore
section_title: Established actress (2003–2009)
hierarchical_section_title: Julianne Moore / Acting career / Established actress (2003–2009)
caption_attribution_description: Julianne Moore at Jerrold Nadler's 2007 gala
context_page_description: Julianne Moore is an American actress and author. Prolific in film since the early 1990s, she is particularly known for her portrayals of emotionally troubled women in both independent and blockbuster films, and has received many accolades, including an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, and two Golden Globes. Time magazine named Moore one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2015.
  After studying theatre at Boston University, Moore began her career with a series of television roles. From 1985 to 1988, she was a regular in the soap opera As the World Turns, earning a Daytime Emmy Award for her performance. Her film debut was in Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, and she continued to play small roles for the next four years, including in the thriller The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. Moore first received critical attention with Robert Altman's Short Cuts, and successive performances in Vanya on 42nd Street and Safe continued this acclaim. Starring roles in the blockbusters Nine Months and The Lost World: Jurassic Park established her as a leading lady in Hollywood.
context_section_description: Moore did not make any screen appearances in 2003, but returned in 2004, with three films. There was no success in her first two ventures of the year: Marie and Bruce, a dark comedy co-starring Matthew Broderick, did not get a cinematic release; Laws of Attraction followed, where she played opposite Pierce Brosnan in a courtroom-based romantic comedy, but the film was panned by critics. Commercial success returned to Moore with The Forgotten, a psychological thriller in which she played a mother who is told her dead son never existed. Although the film was unpopular with critics, it opened as the US box office number one.
  In 2005, Moore worked with her husband for the third time in the comedy Trust the Man, and starred in the true story of a 1950s housewife, The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio. Her first release of 2006 was Freedomland, a mystery co-starring Samuel L. Jackson. The response was overwhelmingly negative, but her follow-up, Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men (2006), was highly acclaimed. Moore had a supporting role in the dystopian drama, playing the leader of an activist group. It is listed on Rotten Tomatoes as one of the best reviewed films of her career, and was named by Peter Travers as the second best film of the decade.
  Moore made her Broadway debut in the world premiere of David Hare's play The Vertical Hour. The production, directed by Sam Mendes and co-starring Bill Nighy, opened in November 2006. Moore played the role of Nadia, a former war correspondent who finds her views on the 2003 invasion of Iraq challenged. Ben Brantley of The New York Times was unenthusiastic about the production, and described Moore as miscast: in his opinion, she failed to bring the "tough, assertive" quality that Nadia required. David Rooney of Variety criticized her "lack of stage technique", adding that she appeared "stiffly self-conscious". Moore later confessed that she found performing on Broadway difficult and had not connected with the medium, but was glad to have experimented with it. The play closed in March 2007 after 117 performances.
  Moore played an FBI agent for the second time in Next (2007), a science fiction action film co-starring Nicolas Cage and Jessica Biel. Based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, the response from critics was highly negative. Manohla Dargis wrote, "Ms. Moore seems terribly unhappy to be here, and it's no wonder." The actress has since described it as her worst film. Next was followed by Savage Grace (2007), the true story of Barbara Daly Baekeland – a high-society mother whose Oedipal relationship with her son ended in murder. Moore was fascinated by the role. Savage Grace had a limited release, and received predominantly negative reviews. Peter Bradshaw, however, called it a "coldly brilliant and tremendously acted movie".
  I'm Not There (2007) saw Moore work with Todd Haynes for the third time. The film explored the life of Bob Dylan, with Moore playing a character based on Joan Baez. In 2008, she starred with Mark Ruffalo in Blindness, a dystopian thriller from the director Fernando Meirelles. The film was not widely seen, and critics were generally unenthusiastic. Moore was not seen on screen again until late 2009, with three new releases. She had a supporting role in The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, and then starred in the erotic thriller Chloe with Liam Neeson and Amanda Seyfried. Shortly afterwards, she appeared in the well-received drama A Single Man. Set in 1960s Los Angeles, the film starred Colin Firth as a homosexual professor who wishes to end his life. Moore played his best friend, "a fellow English expat and semi-alcoholic divorcee", a character that Tom Ford, the film's writer-director, created with her in mind. Leslie Felperin of Variety commented that it was Moore's best role in "some time", and was impressed by the "extraordinary emotional nuance" of her performance. A Single Man was selected as one of the top 10 films of 2009 by the American Film Institute, and Moore received a fifth Golden Globe nomination for her performance in the film.
caption: Moore at a festival for Jerrold Nadler in 2007
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