Julianne Moore on style, beauty, self-care and confidence: Life Lessons | Bazaar UK

Hi, I'm Julianne Moore. I'm here with Harper's Bazaar UK to share some life lessons. What have I learned about style over the years? I've learned to rely on others. I think there's this fallacy that style is innate, that somehow it comes from within you, that you know what to do. I think that style is learned. I think it's learned by looking, by absorbing images and people. I think style is about education. I mean, I think certainly your style evolves over time. And also, it's not constant. I think that's the other thing, that people make this assumption that somehow you're going to be, you know what you are, and you're going to stick with it. And there are people who do that. I do think that your tastes change, and sometimes your location changes, and your lifestyle changes, and you change with it. Oh my god. I think my 80s style is best forgotten. I mean, I think everybody's 80s style is best forgotten. I mean, it was a lot of hair. I used to spray my hair with this, like, sea spray, and then put banana clips all over it, just to make it as big as possible. It worked then. Tom Ford, I think, is the person who gives the best fashion advice. I mean, he's really, one of the things that's so amazing about him is he's not at all mysterious about anything. He'll be like, the reason that dress works is the armhole is so high. So you're like, okay, all right, that's what I'm looking for. But he has an assurance about fit. He's very exacting. I mean, he's a master, right? I mean, I'm fascinated by what people wear, and how they wear it, and where they wear it. And I think as an actor, you realize that everything that people do, everything that they, how they move, how they speak, what they wear, they're all signifiers about who they are, or how they want to be seen. So every time you put on an outfit, you're sort of saying to the world, this is who I am, or this is how I want you to see me. You're always communicating something with what you wear. And that's how we pick up signals from each other. So I love it. I'm fascinated by it. Oh my God, what have I learned about beauty? You know, that's a tough one. Thankfully, I think that things are changing where people believe that there's kind of a wider range than what we consider beautiful. But once again, beauty is context, right? It's like, what do we value? What does one culture value? What does one age value more than another? So I don't think there's any one thing. One of the things I always say is that you realize that when you love someone, when you love someone deeply, you almost cease to see them. You could kind of describe their face if you had to, but your relationship to them goes so far beyond what they look like. So in a sense, it's like, maybe beauty really is something that's completely superficial. The best piece of beauty advice I was ever given was from my mother, who told me to stay out of the sun. And it felt like, you know, it felt like I was in jail, and everybody else was at the beach. It was miserable. But I'm so grateful now. I am so grateful now. It really does make a huge difference for skin. When do I feel most beautiful? I mean, you know, this is what's so terrible about beauty, right? And how externalized it is, because I think that I'll only feel beautiful when I look at a picture of myself that has been kind of constructed, right? You know, we have all these images, and you have hair, and you have makeup, wardrobe. Somebody's taking a beautiful shot, and you're lit beautifully. And you see it, and you think, oh, wow. Oh, I look great. Why does it take that? I think sometimes this idea of beauty is like outside of yourself. It would be nice if we didn't feel like we had to live up to that standard of something being so externalized. Self-care. I mean, it's different things for different people. I think I probably feel great about myself when I'm doing yoga regularly, and I'm eating well, and I have a lot of rest. But I also know that when I'm incredibly stressed, and I'm working hard, like the time that I have to myself, like I have to take a bath, and I'll get into the bathtub, and I'll do my spelling game on the New York Times. And like, that's my idea of self-care. I need some time to be alone. I need some time to kind of like wipe all my thoughts away. And that to me, if I don't have like five minutes of that in a day, then it's hard. I don't know that there was any particular moment that I wanted to be an actor. The amazing thing about it for me was just it was something that I did, because I didn't do anything else after school. I wasn't athletic. There weren't any kind of clubs that I did, and I never made cheerleading, and I never made drill team, even though I tried out. I started trying out for the play, because that's, you know, I thought, why not? And when I got there, it was like something that I could do. It seemed easy for me and really pleasurable. And so with acting in school, I was always just following my interests and never took it seriously until I had a teacher who said to me when I was 17, she said, you know, I think you could do this for a living. And it never occurred to me that anybody did do it for a living. And so she gave me a magazine with some schools in it, and I brought it home to my parents, and I said, I'm going to be an actress. And they were horrified. But you know, it was like, I never made a decision. I just followed my interests, because I always said to my parents, if I don't get into school, I'll just, you know, study liberal arts. If I get into school, I don't get cast, then I'll find something else to do. If I graduate, I don't get a job, then I'll, you know, maybe I'll go to grad school. I always wanted to have something that I could do in the event that it didn't work out. But I just kept following it. And so suddenly I was an actress, which was kind of amazing, really. I don't think that any actor will tell you that they are where they want to be. I think because we always feel like it's for us, it's like this gig economy. You go from one job to another job. I think you only feel like you are, you're doing what you want to do when you're in the middle of a job. Because it's the process of that, it's the engagement in that, that's so rewarding. But the minute you finish that job, you're like, wait, you know, what's next? The aspect of my career that I find most rewarding is the actual work. It's being on a set with other creative people, and we're all working together to make this thing, to make this film. And film, I think, I mean, for me, it's just, it's the most wonderful process because it is this collective, you know, you're all members of this tribe, this group that's creating something together. So I never feel like I'm alone when I'm doing it. I'm with the other actors, I'm with the camera operator, with the focus puller, and the dolly grip, and the director, the cinematographer, and the scenic design people. We all kind of set up this camp and make it together. So it's the collective that I find the most exciting, most rewarding. One of the things I used to always say about advice for people just starting out is to be persistent. You know, that's sort of number one thing. It really takes a very, very long time, and it really does matter how long you hang in there because there's a tremendous attrition rate to what we do. And I think that if you enjoy it, you'll be able to be persistent. But the other thing that I always say, and I think this is really, really important to tell young people, when they're walking into a situation, they're walking into a meeting or an audition, I think they might feel like it's an antagonistic situation, but it's not. I always say, everyone is waiting for you to solve their problem. If people are in an audition room, they want you to come in and be the one to cast. They want to say, that's fantastic, we found someone. You know, she's the answer, he's the answer. So I always say, know that. They need you, they want you, they want you to win. We want you to win. So go into those situations knowing that they're looking for you. The worst piece of advice I've ever been given, and people give this piece of advice a lot, not just in my business, but in any other business, they always say, if there's something else that you can possibly do other than X, Y, and Z, you know, act, paint, then do it. Because this is really hard. And I'm like, I feel like everybody could do something else. I feel like that idea that you can only do one thing is damaging. So even when an actor says like, oh, I can only act, I can't do anything else. I'm like, come on, you can do something else. We can all do something else. That's the great thing. But you know, it's like, how much do you want to do it? So that notion that you should do something only if you can't do anything else, I think it's not a great piece of advice. I'm always so moved by friendship. I'm always think like, how amazing that people choose to be with one another, that they kind of align themselves, and they continue that relationship, because it is something that you realize is voluntary. That idea of like showing up, being with someone, like witnessing their life is just a glorious thing. I don't know how my friends would describe me. I mean, I hope they would describe me as loyal. I hope they would describe me as funny, and consistent. I think a lot of people describe me as organized, which is boring, but maybe it's true. I don't know. You don't know how your friends would describe you, you know, because they never, they never tell you, right? What have I learned about love? That's a big question. You know, our daughter was asking us the other day, my husband and I, like, you know, how do you know that you're in love with somebody? Or, you know, what is it? We were both like, well, yeah. One of the things that my daughter was asking us, too, was like, how many times we've been in love, and it wasn't very many. When you're younger, you think, oh, my goodness, there's, they're gonna be all these people, and I'm gonna feel very strongly about, about them. When I was younger, I'd be infatuated, and I'd felt, I felt like that was love. But, you know, it wore off, and so the surprise would be that when it doesn't wear off, that's, that's sort of when you know that it's, that it's really love. I mean, my husband and I have been together for 28 years now, so that's a long time to be committed to somebody, but I think the thing that I've learned about it is that it's about two people, and about two people wanting to be together, and investing in it. It's not something that, I don't think that love is something that just happens, and, and there's kind of like, you know, limps along without any attention. It really is about the attention that you lavish on it, and on each other, and the family that you form. You know, when you're with someone, and you love someone, you're committed to them, you know, that, that commitment is a, is a big deal, and, and requires kind of, requires care, and time, and investment. You know, confidence is one of those things where people are like, oh yes, you know, well, she's so confident, or look how confident he is, and oh boy, oh boy, that confidence was something else, and it sounds like it comes from, like it comes from somewhere else. It comes from out there, this confidence walks in, and I think for, for me, I'm most confident when I'm prepared. You know, if I'm not prepared, if I don't know my lines, if I don't know where I'm supposed to be, if I don't know what's going on in a certain situation, I'm not confident. Being prepared, knowing, educating myself, doing what I need to do, that, that helps me feel, feel ready for anything, and I think that's a, a nice thing to know, too, that it's not something that's visited upon you, that it's something that you can learn by preparing yourself for a situation. I think that you start to learn more about what you need, you know, how much time you need, what kind of situation benefits you best. Everybody's different. You learn to give yourself the tools of the space to do the best you can. The knowing your worth thing is, is really challenging, I think, for anybody. One of the things I struggle with a lot in the world and in society in general is hierarchy, and we're very hierarchical as human beings. You know, we set up situations again and again and again where there's, there's somehow, there's like a leader and a follower, and people are deemed more important based on money that they have or access they have, and so this idea of worth becomes really important. You're supposed to promote that in yourself, when in fact, I feel like the world needs to change. You know, really, it's like if we can, if we can disassemble all these systems of hierarchy, people won't feel all the time like they have to prove their worth. Everyone is worth the same. You know, every human being is worth the same. Unfair criticism. Well, I think you can't listen to it. Honestly, if criticism is unfair or not constructive or cruel, like, don't pay attention to it. I always think about this, too, when you, you hear about kids on social media, and they're like, the comments were so mean, and I'm like, don't read the comments. It's so horrible. I think the system that we have right now, where people are kind of posting these comments that are anonymous and hurtful, we've got to find a way to turn that off. Just don't listen to it. Don't read it. You have to take responsibility for your mistakes. I think that's the only thing that you can do, and of course, you know, when you've made a mistake, there's a great deal of shame that goes along with it, because you're like, how could I have done that? Why did I let myself get into that situation? I think the only thing that you can do is look at the situation and try to think about why you reacted the way you did or why you felt you had to make that choice. And if you're faced with a situation like that again, you know, try to enter it differently. You have to take responsibility from them. You have to learn from them. And unfortunately, it's just part of being a human being. We all do it. I wrote the Freckle Face Strawberry series, and I wrote the book about my mother, about having a mother, you know, from another country when my kids were little, because we were reading so many things. And actually, I had a friend say to me, oh, you should write something. Your kids don't really care about what happened to you. They care about what happens to them. But I was really touched by my son's experience of feeling that he didn't like the way his ears were. He was so little. He was only seven, and he didn't like that his ears stuck out. And I was like, ears don't stick out. They're just, you know, he just had a haircut, and your face hasn't caught up to this, and you're perfect, and you're beautiful. But I thought about that. I thought about how I felt about my red hair, my freckles, and whatever. And that's how that series happened. But one of the things I think about creativity and the creative process is that it doesn't remain the same, that my interest in that really coincided with my children being that age and kind of being in that world. And then once my kids got to be older, I was like, I'm not doing that anymore. But that was okay. I think that idea that you can have several things that you're interested in, and that things are more pertinent at different parts of your life is really wonderful. The best piece of life advice I've received from another woman, and I mean, of course, is my mother. And she said a million things to me that have been fundamental in who I am, and she's the person I've kind of based my whole life on. But then I was thinking about something that was really kind of funny and unbelievably pertinent. She'd say, whenever I didn't understand anything, she'd say to me, well, what's the context? Like, tell me what the context is, and then maybe you'll be able to figure out what the word means. And I always thought it was so valuable, because that's sort of how you learn everything. And then if you still can't figure it out from the context, then she said, look it up. And of course, that was the bane of my childhood. I was spending all this time looking it up, and her not telling me until I'd like studied the context and looked it up. But then I realized that what she was telling me is that you have to learn about it. You have to educate yourself. You have to know that knowing, knowing the context and knowing the meaning is like absolutely everything in life. Thank you so much for watching. Bye.