You don’t have to be paying too close attention to know Julianne Moore keeps a busy schedule. Her place as one of today’s most accomplished actors means she’s popping up on streaming services as much as she is in awards season films and indies. When not acting, she’s posting on Instagram about gun control or turning up across the New York social scene or at fashion shows in Manhattan, Milan and Paris.
So it’s rare to find her sitting still, as she is this fall. After a “nutty” few years spent shooting back to back, often in Europe, she’s found herself with a long stretch of time off. On the agenda was a trip to Italy, first for fashion week and then some travel with her husband and friends, followed by getting to enjoy fall at home in New York. For her that looks like recommitting to an exercise schedule, going to museums, trying to see all the new fall movies and seeing her girlfriends.
It’d be nice to think that she’s arranged her schedule as such, but the reality is she’s just as beholden to the mercy of film schedules as any actor.
“Nothing is by design,” she said with a smile. “I think it’s a big misnomer that we have [control] — well, that any of us have control.”
Givenchy by Sarah Burton wool cocoon jacket and trousers; Khaite shoes; Walter’s Faith 18-karat yellow gold and diamond earrings; Movado Heritage 1917 stainless steel watch with cherry leather strap.
Matthew Brooks/WWD
Moore is at home, dressed down in a navy sweater and distressed denim and sitting cross-legged on an infrared BioMat she’s tucked under a sheepskin rug (she sings its praises so highly it’s become her go-to gift). It was shortly before she was set to embark on her one major outing of the fall — to Milan, for Louise Trotter’s debut collection for Bottega Veneta. The pair met in the spring at Bottega’s event at upstate New York art museum Dia: Beacon, and Moore was the first to wear Trotter’s designs for the brand, at the Cannes Film Festival.
“She’s really, really cool. Very talented, very easy to speak to, so I’m excited,” Moore, who has been an ambassador for the brand since 2024, said of Trotter. “I’m excited for a female designer, too.”
The term “fashion icon” gets thrown around much too casually these days, especially when it comes to celebrities, but Moore fits the definition. She’s as original and chic in double denim in the Milan Fashion Week front row as she is on the red carpet in sparkling gold Bottega Veneta, in 2024, or winning an Oscar in ivory Chanel in 2015 for “Still Alice.” So it’s no surprise that she’s been approached by many fashion brands over the years to front campaigns or sign on as ambassador. Bottega Veneta, it turns out, was finally the right fit.
“I feel like it’s a brand that I’m really deeply aligned with,” she said. “First of all, I do love craft. I really, really appreciate things that are built by hand and have that kind of personality and that human touch. And so that’s sort of what their whole brand is about. And I just love the aesthetic. It’s really modern. It’s very simple. There’s a lot of creativity in the clothes, in the designs that they present, but I also find it easy for me to wear. I’m attracted to it. I’m attracted to the clothes themselves.”
Trotter returned the praise, saying, “Julianne embodies what Bottega Veneta has always stood for: authenticity, individuality and a quiet magnetism that never needs to announce itself.”
Moore is also aligned with Movado, whose small size and family-run approach drew her in.
“I like the idea that it’s something that’s high-quality. I love that the watch is in the Museum of Modern Art because I think how wonderful to have achieved something like that, and then also how wonderful that it’s a price point that it’s fairly accessible, too,” she said. “I love the family feeling of the brand.”
Movado’s president Margot Grinberg praised the actress. “Julianne Moore is iconic — timeless, elegant and a true representation of artistry — qualities that are deeply rooted in Movado’s DNA.”
It wasn’t always this way for the actress, who started working in the mid-1980s and broke into stardom with “Boogie Nights” in 1997 and “The Big Lebowski” in 1998.
“Certainly starting out, I had no relationship with fashion,” she said.
Her own style journey began as a high schooler in Frankfurt, Germany, where her father, a military judge, was stationed. She could shop more mainstream American fashion on the base, but started going downtown to browse German stores.
“That was the first time that I started really investing in fashion, or thinking about it,” she said. “I remember I begged my mother, we were buying winter coats, and I decided that I wanted a cape, which was particularly dramatic, and also particularly German. It was a big heavy wool cape with slits, not practical, but also more European in feel than certainly what was happening in the U.S. fashion I was getting on the base. But it’s interesting, what you’re exposed to and what you’re drawn to.”
From there she moved to Boston for college at Boston University, where she was exposed to the “preppy thing happening there always,” before landing in New York in the ‘80s in the midst of the Charivari years.
“It just sort of develops and grows,” she said of her taste. “Your eye changes and what you want to wear and how you see yourself [changes].”
Her relationship to fashion has continued to evolve through her work.
Balenciaga cotton maxi trenchcoat; Khaite boots; Bottega Veneta earrings; Jade Ruzzo Anna band in solid gold.
Matthew Brooks/WWD
“As an actor and in terms of costume, you’re always thinking about what is somebody trying to say with their clothes? What are the signifiers of this character, and often their wardrobe is part of that,” she said. “So it is always interesting to me because I think of that less with myself, but of course, that’s a part of it. That’s why people are always asking about your alliances with certain brands. Why are you drawn to that? Because it is a window into what somebody’s taste is, what they like, what they appreciate.”
Longtime friend Tom Ford revealed that, “One of the things people might not know about Julianne is her absolute passion about furniture and design and of course, we both enjoy sharing a bit of gossip about our mutual friends.” The designer added how “Julianne is one of the most loyal friends one could have, she is also great fun and we share many passions.”
In the last year-plus, Moore has done everything from 1600s period drama in “Mary & George” to Pedro Almodóvar’s English-debut “The Room Next Door,” with Tilda Swinton, the Netflix series “Sirens” with Meghann Fahy and the Apple original film “Echo Valley” with Sydney Sweeney. Ahead, she will be seen in Jesse Eisenberg’s next movie alongside Paul Giamatti and “Control,” with James McAvoy.
“It always starts with a piece of writing. You read something and right away, generally you’re attracted to the language or you’re not,” she said of what drives her decisions. “It’s like you can hear it in your head and you strive to form a relationship with that language and that character. It’s often pretty immediate.”
That is how it went when she first read the script for Eisenberg’s film, a musical comedy called “No One Cares” that she recently wrapped.
“It was so original and so alive, and it was one where, I said this to Jesse, I was on page 30 and I became so overwhelmed I had to stand up. I just stood up and took a walk around my living room,” she said. “I just paced around the room for a second and was like, ‘is this happening? Am I seeing this, on the page?’ It was so beautiful. He’s such a wonderful writer and such an original thinker and a great talent, and I just was like ‘oh, god, when do we do this?’”
Moore doesn’t know yet what her next project will be, but she’s always in search of something new.
“Often what I do next is in reaction to what I’ve just done. If you’ve been kind of in a sad place, you sort of want to go to a happier place, or if you’ve been in a comedy space, you sort of want to make it more tense the next time,” she said.
On the idea of having some kind of plan or control? Moore acknowledged, “We just don’t. The joy of what I do is the surprise.” Like when she got to work with Swinton and Giamatti. “I think everybody always assumed that I knew Tilda because we’re the same age. We’re working with a lot of similar filmmakers, and I’d met her once or twice, but I’d never worked with her, and she was a dream collaborator. But she just kind of came into my life. Paul Giamatti, who I worked with on Jesse’s movie, same thing. Everyone was like, ‘don’t you guys know each other?’ I was like, ‘I’ve met him a couple of times, but once on a red carpet and once in a bookstore,’ and he turned into a dream collaborator. I sort of have found that the wonderful thing is staying open to possibilities of work but also people coming your way. You find that you end up with people who are attracted to the same kind of material as you are. I’ve been really, really fortunate.”
Willy Chavarria and Adidas polyester Chavarria Princess track jacket and Carolina Herrera synthetic petticoat skirt with lace overlay; Khaite shoes; Tiffany Victoria Tennis Bracelet in platinum with diamonds; Vintage Movado Museum watch.
Matthew Brooks/WWD
Moore’s Wikipedia will tell you that she is known for her “portrayal of emotionally troubled and vulnerable women,” which she points out was recently edited to include “vulnerable.”
“It used to be ‘emotionally troubled women.’ I was like, ‘is that AI? Or is that a culture change?’” she said. “I think what’s kind of interesting is that whenever you try to do a logline, I always think loglines are so crazy. What is this about? Or who is this person? Or what are they known for? It boils down to something, and it’s not always easy to synthesize. And I think that if there’s maybe one throughline in my career, it’s that I play women in relationship to other people and a lot in domestic situations. And so the stories are relational, and they’re emotional, and they tend toward maybe realism or naturalism rather than things that are science fiction or action or something.
“Isn’t that interesting?” she continued. “I do think that it is just hard to distill a person down to a film, an event.”
Photos by Matthew Brookes
Hair by Orlando Pita
Makeup by Romy Soleimani
NAILS: Manicure by Elle Gerstein at Opus Beauty using Dashing Diva
Props by Michael Sturgeon
Location: Blonde & Co Studio
