Julianne Moore Rejects Movies ‘With Explosions and Guns’ in 2026

Julianne Moore reflected on her decades-long career in a conversation with Variety‘s Angelique Jackson during a Kering Women in Motion Talk at Cannes on Saturday, discussing everything from female representation in film to how she selects her roles.

The Oscar-winning actor, who is receiving Kering’s Women in Motion Award at this year’s festival, kicked off the talk by saying that the prize is “a thrill and a tremendous honor.”

“As an actor, you’re part of a gig economy… you’re going from one job to the next,” she said. “When you realize you’re being celebrated or asked to speak about what’s behind you, it’s like wow. This is something I created in my life. It’s a nice point of reflection and wonderful honor.”

Moore has been an advocate for women’s representation in the industry since the start of her career. When asked about a recent study reporting that the number of women in lead roles dropped to 37% among 2025’s highest-grossing movies, down 10% from 2024, Moore noted the issue is “not endemic just to the film industry, it’s global.”

“I mean, there’s not representation in C-suites, there’s not representation in media, there’s not representation in higher education. There are lots of places where we don’t have the representation we deserve. So I feel like it’s a bigger problem,” she said. “And how do you change that? I don’t know. It’s like, how does a mouse get through a wall? One bite at a time. You do it slowly, steadily, mindfully, making choices, speaking up, using your privilege, hiring more, talking about alliances, changing things for us on set.”

She added that “women are each other’s greatest allies” and “that’s the secret sauce” to success. “It’s like, we are the ones who have each other’s backs, we are the ones who hire each other, we are the ones that write stories about ourselves,” Moore added. “And that actually goes back to point of view, too. Like, who is telling that story? Whose point of view is it? Is it a female point of view?”

Moore strives to align herself with filmmakers who are “clear about whose story it is, how it’s being told and whether or not it’s accurate.” Similarly, as she’s progressed in her career and been able to be pickier with roles, there are some genres she’s just not interested in.

“I’m less and less interested in tragedy, I would say,” she said. “Particularly now at a time when things are rough globally, it’s hard for me to invest in a story that I think is pretend, where I feel like the depth of the emotion doesn’t measure up to what’s happening in the world.”

Moore continued: “I don’t like someone being murdered. I don’t like explosions and guns. I don’t like histrionics. I don’t like things that raise the stakes without real feeling underneath. I mean, that actually bothers me because that’s like noise. I don’t know how to play it. I don’t want to watch it.”

She also looked back on some of her most famous roles, including starring in “The Hours” alongside Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman. Asked how Streep inspired her in her career, Moore said: “She’s the gold standard.”

“I sort of grew up watching television and movies and seeing movie stars, and she was the first woman that I saw who appeared to be touchable and untouchable at the same time. There was something very human about her and something very modern,” Moore said. “Here was this actress who was like the next big thing, and she was so precise in what she did and so modern and so accessible and yet glamorous and wonderful and brave all at the same time. So I feel like she kind of lit a fire under everybody in terms of how we wanted to be, in terms of what we felt we could achieve in our work.”