Julianne Moore: Becoming Beautiful

Not Good-Looking Enough To Be An Actress?

(CBS)  Actress Julianne Moore, who has turned a few heads on the big screen, believes Americans put far too much emphasis on youth and beauty.

Moore tells Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith she was told early in her career that she was not good-looking enough to become an actress.

"That was stuff I dealt with early in my career, and you become more successful, and people say, 'She's really pretty,'" she says. "You realize your looks haven't changed; it's the way people are perceiving you. Beauty is an interesting, subjective kind of thing, and we place much too much importance on it."

Moore says she will never get plastic surgery. She sees it as an epidemic that is making people look the same. "I feel like it doesn't make people look any younger. It makes them look like they've had surgery," she says. "It's an aesthetic that's not human, so I want people to look like themselves."

Moore stars in the new psychological thriller "The Forgotten," playing a mother trying to deal with the death of her son, without the support of anyone, including her husband, played by Anthony Edwards.

Moore's character is tormented by the memory of her 8-year-old son Sam's death in a plane crash 14 months before. She is informed by her psychiatrist that she is suffering from delusions and her son never existed. She tries to find evidence of Sam's existence, but it has all disappeared.

Moore, a mother herself, says, "The loss of a child is simply unfathomable, a tremendous tragedy, and it affects you so deeply and you can barely comprehend it, so it's an interesting premise for a movie, that it starts with something that emotionally is so fraught, so important."

Some Facts About Julianne Moore

Moore was born Julie Anne Smith in Boston, Mass., on Dec. 3, 1960.

She was graduated from the American High School in Frankfurt, Germany.

Moore attended Boston University, where she began her career on stage.

In 1985, Moore caught her first break when she was cast as Frannie Hughes on the popular CBS daytime drama "As the World Turns"; it's the same show that spawned the careers of Marissa Tomei and Meg Ryan.

In 1988, Moore received a Daytime Emmy Award for her role in "As the World Turns."

In 1990, Moore landed her first film role as a mummy's victim in "Tales From the Darkside: The Movie."

In 1992, Moore played the career-driven real estate agent friend of a new mom in the surprise box-office hit thriller, "The Hand the Rocks the Cradle."

In 1993, Moore had roles in "The Fugitive and "Short Cuts."

In 1995, the actress portrayed a housewife who develops allergies to everyday chemicals and fragrances in Todd Haynes' "Safe"; she played Hugh Grant's pregnant girlfriend in "Nine Months"; and she played an electronics expert targeted for death in "Assassins."

In 1996, Moore co-starred in "Surviving Picasso."

In 1997, Moore played the moody daughter of a highly dysfunctional family in the indie "The Myth of Fingerprints"; the actress played a paleontologist pursuing dinosaurs in Steven Spielberg's "The Lost World: Jurassic Park"; and picked up a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination as a drug-addicted porn star who plays mother to a ragtag film crew in Paul Thomas Anderson's "Boogie Nights."

In 1998, Moore co-starred in "The Big Lebowski,"' and she had a role in the color remake of Hitchcock's 1960 classic "Psycho."

In 1999, Moore was in five features: "Cookie's Fortune," "An Ideal Husband," "The End of the Affair," "A Map of the World" and "Magnolia."

In 2001, Moore took over the role of FBI agent Clarice Starling in the horror feature "Hannibal"; she also co-starred in "Evolution" and "The Shipping News."

In 2002, Moore starred in "Far From Heaven," and co-starred with Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep in the ensemble "The Hours." The actress received Academy Award nominations for both films.

In 2003, she married director and screenwriter Bart Freundlich, who directed her in 1997's "The Myth of Fingerprints." She has been with him since 1996. Her son Caleb Freundlich was born in 1997, and her daughter Liv Helen Freundlich was born in 2002.

In 2004, she appeared with Pierce Brosnan in "Laws Of Attraction". She is currently filming "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio," about Evelyn Ryan, a homemaker during the 1950s who provided for her large family by winning hundreds of brand-name contests with her poems and jingles. She is also slated to star in Michael Winterbottom's "Freedomland" with Morgan Freeman.

©MMIV, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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