Julianne Moore says she was once told “try to look prettier” by an entertainment industry figure.
Moore doesn’t give any indication as to who the person was or what their position in the industry might have been, referring to them simply as “someone in the film industry.”
She says she replied: “I don’t know if I can.”
The actor, who won an Oscar for “Still Alice” in 2015, revealed the exchange in an interview with The Times of London. “Obviously, ours is a business where there is some physicality involved, but beauty and prettiness are subjective,” she told the newspaper.
Moore, whose mother is originally from Scotland, also admitted she sometimes dreams about being a “tanned blonde” rather than a redhead with pale skin. “My red hair made me feel like an outsider growing up,” she says. “Redheads are 2 per cent of the global population. Nobody wants to feel like they’re in the minority, particularly as a young child. Now I feel very identified with my hair and freckles, but there’s still a part of me that would rather be a tanned blonde.”
She added that because of her pale skin, she can’t soak up rays. “I can’t be in the sun for half an hour without burning,” Moore explained. “I look just like my mother and she said to me, ‘stay out of the sun.’ Because I’m so fair and have freckles, I have always had to wear a hat and sunscreen. That has made the biggest difference to me in terms of maintaining my skin. But people do not want to hear that.”