In therapy she trusts. Julianne Moore told The Hollywood Reporter in its new issue that she doesn’t believe in God. Instead, she’s placed her faith in her therapist and herself.
The Still Alice actress, 54, explained how she’s developed her spiritual outlook, much of it stemming from her childhood. “The idea that you’re the center of your own narrative and that you can create your life is a great idea,” Moore told THR. “I totally believe it. I’ve been really lucky, but I feel I’ve completely created my own life.”
It’s this innate sense of personal control that’s made Moore believe — at least in her personal life — the absence of a supreme higher power. “I learned when my mother died five years ago that there is no ‘there’ there,” Moore told the mag. “Structure, it’s all imposed. We impose order and narrative on everything in order to understand it. Otherwise, there’s nothing but chaos.”
Moore opened up about her mom Anne Smith‘s 2009 death at age 68 from septic shock. “We don’t know why it happened,” the actress revealed. “She went to bed, and it turned out she had a huge bacterial infection.”
Her relationship with her mother also affected how the star chose a stage name when joining the Screen Actors Guild decades ago. “When I went to join SAG as Julie Smith, they were like, ‘There’s a Julie Smith, there’s a Julie Anne Smith. You have to choose another name,'” she recalled. “My dad’s name was Peter Moore Smith, and my mother’s name was Anne Smith, and I used both their names so I wouldn’t hurt anybody’s feelings.”
After her mother’s death, Moore sought stability in her therapist, a practice she began in her early 30s during her split from then-husband John Gould Rubin. “I was lonely,” Moore recalled of the ’90s. “I don’t think I felt happy. I didn’t have the kind of personal life I wanted… I really wanted a family.”
Her therapist told her that she needed to look inward. “I discovered that [practice of self-reflecting] was as important as my professional life,” Moore revealed to THR. “I didn’t spend the time; I didn’t invest… You have to make your personal life happen as much as your career.'”
Shortly after divorcing Rubin, Moore met director Bart Freundlich while reading the script for The Myth of Fingerprints; they married in 2003. “He’s an extraordinary individual,” the star gushed of her director husband, the father of their two teenage kids, son Caleb and daughter Liv. “And he’s always made me feel good about myself and about my work, and I hope I make him feel good, too.”
Meanwhile, Moore has dealt with some harsh external commentary. “I get more reactions on Twitter about gun safety than anything else,” the gun control advocate told THR. “I don’t understand how we’re threatening the Second Amendment because we’re talking about gun safety rules. That, to me, is really shocking.”
