Julianne Moore

Julianne Moore, born Julie Anne Smith on December 3, 1960, at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, is an American actress whose career spans independent film, major studio productions, television, and the Broadway stage. She is the recipient of an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, two Emmy Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards, and stands as one of only two actresses to have won the Best Actress prize at all three major European film festivals: Cannes, Berlin, and Venice.

Moore's upbringing was shaped by her father's military career. Peter Moore Smith served as a paratrooper during the Vietnam War, eventually attaining the rank of colonel and becoming a military judge. Her mother, Anne, born in Greenock, Scotland, immigrated to the United States in 1951 and worked as a psychologist and social worker; she died in 2009. Moore has a younger sister and a younger brother, the novelist Peter Moore Smith. Because of her father's postings, the family relocated repeatedly throughout Moore's childhood, living at various points in Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Panama, Nebraska, Alaska, New York, and Virginia, among other places. Moore attended nine different schools as a result. At sixteen, while the family was living in Falls Church, Virginia, where she attended J.E.B. Stuart High School, they relocated to Frankfurt, West Germany, and she continued her education at Frankfurt American High School. Though she had initially planned to pursue medicine, encouragement from her English teacher led her toward theater. She appeared in school productions including Tartuffe and Medea before enrolling at the Boston University College of Fine Arts, where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in theater in 1983. In 2011, Moore claimed British citizenship in honor of her Scottish mother.

After graduating, Moore moved to Manhattan and began her professional career in 1985 off-Broadway, having previously appeared in a 1984 episode of the soap opera The Edge of Night. Her first significant break came when she joined the cast of As the World Turns, playing the dual roles of half-sisters Frannie and Sabrina Hughes from 1985 to 1988. The experience proved formative, and her work on the series earned her a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Ingenue in a Drama Series. Before departing the show, she appeared in the 1987 CBS miniseries I'll Take Manhattan, and afterward played Ophelia opposite Željko Ivanek in a Guthrie Theater production of Hamlet. She also worked with stage director Andre Gregory beginning in 1990 on a workshop production of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, a project she later described as one of the most fundamentally important acting experiences of her life. Filmmaker Robert Altman attended that production and was moved to cast her in his ensemble drama Short Cuts (1993), which became Moore's breakthrough film role.

Her screen career accelerated through the 1990s with a series of critically noted performances. Todd Haynes directed her in Safe (1995), and she appeared in the blockbusters Nine Months (1995) and The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997). Academy Award nominations followed for her roles in Boogie Nights (1997), The End of the Affair (1999), Far from Heaven (2002), and The Hours (2002). She also appeared in The Big Lebowski (1998), Magnolia (1999), Hannibal (2001), and Children of Men (2006). Moore won a Primetime Emmy Award for her portrayal of Sarah Palin in the HBO film Game Change (2012), and received the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as an Alzheimer's patient in Still Alice (2014). Her highest-grossing releases include the final two installments of The Hunger Games film series (2014–2015) and the spy film Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017). More recent work includes Haynes' drama May December (2023), the historical miniseries Mary & George (2024), and the limited series Sirens (2025).

Moore made her Broadway debut in 2006, appearing in The Vertical Hour. She was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and is married to film director Bart Freundlich; the couple has two children. In addition to her acting work, Moore has authored a series of children's books featuring a character named Freckleface Strawberry. In 2015, Time magazine included her on its list of the 100 most influential people in the world, and in 2020, The New York Times named her one of the greatest actors of the 21st century.