Moore Power

Archetypal Hollywood star Julianne Moore opens up about family, flexibility and what she hopes will become of Donald Trump.

- James Mottram

Julianne Moore gazes around her hotel suite, overlooking the sparkling Adriatic Sea, soaking it all in. Just a few days ago she and her husband, filmmaker Bart Freundlich, were at their beach house in Montauk before returning to their townhouse in New York’s West Village. Summer holiday over, it’s back to work. “It’s always a rude awakening,” she says. All she has left is the faintest of tans. “I was just in the bathtub looking at how freckly my legs are … I’ve spent the past month in shorts.”

Now Hollywood’s most personable redhead is in Venice, where her new movie, the George Clooney-directed Suburbicon, has just been unveiled to considerable acclaim. Though it’s just after 11am, the shorts are gone and Moore is dressed for cocktail hour in a sleeveless black Prada dress (“Italian for Italy!”) with feather trim. The shape-shifting is not lost on her. She glances at her publicist Stephen Huvane, sitting behind her. “Stephen posted a picture of a boat on Instagram yesterday and it said: ‘It never gets old.’ And it’s true: it never gets old. The opportunities we have, the way we get to travel, the people we get to meet and the dresses we get to wear … it is an opportunity that I’m grateful for.” Another gesture to the finery around her. “I try not to take any of this for granted.”

Her dress is a bit less showy than the feathery pink, red and yellow Calvin Klein one she wore to the Met Gala this year, but she carries it off with the sort of casual elegance you might expect from an actress who has been walking red carpets for the past 20-odd years. Her pale skin touched with only a hint of make-up, her natural beauty shines through. It’s hard to believe she turns 57 in December.