Julianne Moore says the film industry has “changed dramatically” since she started out in the early 1990s when it comes to female representation.
Speaking as part of Kering’s Women in Motion program at the Cannes Film Festival,the Oscar winner said one of the most noticeable differences is when it comes to career longevity for actresses.
“Meryl [Streep] said this too the other day [during the festival’s opening ceremony], this idea that when she was 40, she thought it was all going to be over,” she said. “I think we’re now seeing women represented through all stages of their lives, which is very exciting.”
In the conversation, moerated by PvNew senior entertainment writer Angelique Jackson, Moore noted that she is now seeing not just more female directors, but more women working as camera operators, grips and in the electric department. “Whereas before there were none,” she said. “But we’re still really far from gender parity.”
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The recent rise of young, high-profile female actors who are now producing their own projects —such as Sydney Sweeney (who stars with Moore in the upcoming thriller “Echo Valley”) and Zendaya —is something she celebrates.
“It’s wonderful. I think that expectations have changed about what’s possible for women to achieve,” she said. “Certainly, when I was Sydney’s age, that’s not something I ever considered.”
Moore is in Cannes 10 years after she won the best actress Palme d’Or for David Cronenberg’s “Maps to the Stars” in 2014, a visit to the south of France that spanned eight days as she also had “Hunger Games” premiering at the festival. However, by the time the awards ceremony took place, she’d already returned home to Long Island.
“Winning was the furthest things from my mind, it was honestly something that I never thought would happen,” she said. “And I got this phone call saying you have to come back, and I’m like, ‘I’m not going to be able to do that, you have no idea how far away I am!’”
As was pointed out in the interview, Moore also discovered she’d won the Daytime Emmy —for “As the World Turns” in 1988 — via a phone call, as she was doing a play in Minneapolis at the time.
“So I guess the phone is lucky!” she said.
