Julianne Moore on Sirens, Echo Valley, and the Appeal of the Domestic Drama

0:28This is The Run Through. I'm Chloe Mal. Vogue Wellness Retreat is our first one. How did it go? And what does it consist of? Good question. Basically, it is all the things I love over the course of two days. So our headline or keynote speaker was Deepak Chopra. So we actually retreated to a guided meditation from Deepak. There was a dinner the night before and I actually managed to score a seat next to Deepak. So the dinner conversation, as you can imagine, was pretty intense and riveting. Did he give you life advice you'll take with you forever? I did. I was very curious about his daily routine.

1:10Oh, yeah. What is his daily routine? He doesn't start working till 11. Huh. Okay. But he does five hours of yoga and meditation every single day. Five hours? Five hours. So because I said, what are your non-negotiables? Because he basically, I said, do you go on vacation? He goes, my work is like a holiday. So he doesn't go on vacation. He does travel a lot. He does five hours. He does five hours of yoga and meditation every day. He goes to bed. Sleep is very much. He has a hundred percent sleep score. Like consistently? Consistently, because he said it started when he was training to be a doctor and they would have to sleep in four hour intervals on and off.

1:55We talked about how now he's witnessing doctors doing surgery from Dubai on someone remotely with robots. Wow. So he's very deeply into AI. In fact, he's going to Cannes Lion to do a talk about it. And he has this app that is kind of incredible and is an AI for well-being and longevity. So he basically can ask Deepak anything. So yeah, it was really interesting. He doesn't socialize anymore. That's how he manages to do five hours of yoga a day. I said, oh yeah, that'll do it. I mean, my sleep score would be better if I didn't socialize too. I know. But would your life be better if you didn't socialize?

2:34But I feel like I do spend a lot of my going to bedtime thinking about, oh, I should have said this. I shouldn't have said that to that person. So if I wasn't talking to people, it'd be a lot easier. Well, speaking of talking to people and making your life better, we had the best conversation with Julianne Moore this week. Me and Taylor Antrim spoke to her. We got to talk all about her Netflix show Sirens and her thriller Echo Valley, which is currently in theaters and coming to Apple TV on June 13th. She was just such a dream. I loved hearing that you and you You and Julianne had a special connection for your dad.

3:17Didn't your dad director in Vanya on 42nd Street? Yes. It was one of Julianne's first movies. It was in 1994. And it was actually the last film my dad made before he died. So we always think about that film very, it has a special place. And actually it was at the theater on 42nd Street, the new Victory Theater, which I now go back to because it's been renovated and has amazing children's theater productions. And my father's memorial was held there because of On 42nd Street. So it all sort of was coming back together. But Julianne's always so lovely. I'm actually listening to her reading Joan Didion's new book, Notes to John.

4:02She is the narrator on the Audible audiobook, and it is such a treat. And it was so fun to hear her talking about reading that. So that was exciting. And really, it's been fun listening to her doing that. She's got such a beautiful voice, too. Yes, exactly. Choma, your new cover is so fab. Raul showed it to me in his office a few weeks ago. And I was like, this is what a glamorous, coy summer cover should be. It's so playful and knowing and fun and charming. I just love it. Can you tell everyone what it is a bit? Yeah, I can. It is the formidable Dua Lipa. I think there was a moment actually when we were at the shows and I was sitting next to Laura Ingham, who is our fashion director.

4:50And basically we saw these bullet bras coming down the runway at Miu Miu. We were like, we have to get this on a cover. it just felt like the bullet bra has just fully made a comeback and it's been in the ether I guess since the Met last year I think Charlie XCX wore one and there were a few people who wore them but the the the latest collections where was it really fully exploded I just thought we have to we have to dress someone in the bullet bra and you know thankfully uh Camilla Nickerson who styled the cover was fully game uh the cover was shot by by david sims as the first cover he's he's shooting since i started my job and so it's pretty exciting and they really had this fun fun concept it was something that dua and and um david cooked up i think there were many references to betty page and this idea of a modern pin-up but camilla really wanted dua to feel fully empowered and i think she does and actually she's wearing only female designers in the portfolio oh cool i know i love that leather marine sarah um like leather corset uh yeah i mean she wears some some amazing pieces from from delara as well who's a fabulous british designer uh who's had an incredible year so yeah i mean and the story's just i think it's the most open that do has ever been she spoke to Gabby Woods Gabby trailed her on tour in Madrid and she opened up for about Callum for the first time it was so interesting hearing her talk about the fact that it felt like their meet their meeting was almost fated they met several times throughout their life uh without or had these connections where I think they had they shared the same roommate they were introduced finally by Ruthie Rogers and then but they'd been in the same places or there are pictures of them in the same spaces.

6:47Oh my God, I thought that was crazy. It's like such a sliding doors meet cute and that they were reading the same book when they finally met. The reading of the same book took me out, I have to say. Very spooky. So it felt like they were meant to be and she seems so comfortable, so into him. I don't know. It feels like she's really coming into her own. She's turning 30 this summer. She has these sold out shows. She looks incredible. Yeah, it was a real pleasure to read. So I hope people enjoy it. No, I love it. Gabby Wood's so good at those stories. I just feel like she paints such a full portrait of someone.

7:22And I didn't know that much about Dua. And now I feel like I have a really full appreciation of her life and her background and where she is right now. So I feel I'm a Dua expert. I know. And I feel like she had the hotspot to move to London at 15 from Albania. I know. I couldn't believe that by herself. I know. I didn't know that story. No, it was it was. I feel really I feel really excited for people to read it because she's such a force. And she's so she's just really warm as well. She's a she's a very warm, lovely person to be around. Well, I'm very excited for everyone to read and see that story.

8:02But I guess we have to talk about the big news of the week at Condé. We do. We absolutely do. Our beloved Mark Waducci, a real visionary of the Run Through podcast, is the new editor of Vanity Fair. Global editorial director. Yes. And we are so excited for him. I have to say, when the news that Radika Jones was leaving Vanity Fair dropped in April, I was on a flight. And then yesterday when this news dropped, I was also on a flight. So I was like, the only times I'm out of the office, I miss the big moments. But yes, it's very exciting. We're all thrilled. Yeah, it's just it's fun to see exciting things happen.

8:47I know, and we've kind of grown up with Mark. Yeah, I mean, Mark and I have been working together for 15 years. I feel like he's been my work husband for a long time. So this is a very, very exciting moment. Oh, but also the Tonys this week, I was watching from afar. It seemed like quite an eventful awards night. Yeah, people were excited about the Tonys this year. It felt very buzzy. People seemed to tune in more than usual. Cynthia Erivo, I thought, did a great job. She had nine outfit changes. Oh, my God. The Schiaparelli was my favorite. Schiaparelli was fab. I also thought some of her jokes were very funny.

9:26Giving Oprah a bag of toy cars made me actually lol. And the Hamilton reunion was fun. I mean, there was just a lot of buzzy moments. Amal Clooney dripping in pearls is always great to see. Love to see. Cola Scola in Wiedehoff. Yes. Nicole Scherzinger, who won for Sunset Boulevard, she looked incredible in Rodarte. We did a diary with her, and she truly had to rush from a matinee to the Tonys. Wow. And if you've seen the show, you know that she ends the show covered in blood, so that's a big makeup switcheroo. I wonder how many hours it takes her to get off in the shower. Yeah, exactly. Well, she didn't have that time.

10:13Oh, we did talk about the tennis. Oh, yes. So Coco won the French Oban. Her opponent was Irina Sabalenka. And Irina gave this very, the definition of a sore loser speech and basically said that Coco was fine. But because Irina wasn't on top of her game, that was the only reason that she won. The only reason that she won was because Irina made all of these errors. and had it been someone else, you know, she would have won if she was at the top of her game. And it was just so, it was just, it smacked so much of poor loser and everybody kind of, everybody in the league did. People were not happy.

10:59People were not happy. It was just not in the spirit of like great sportsmanship. So, and then Irina issued a statement saying that, you know, basically walking it all back. But that even didn't feel, I don't know. I just feel like hopefully moving forward, we don't see our sports people making errors like that because it just doesn't feel like in the spirit. You have your good days, you have your bad days, fair, but you don't have to excuse yourself or fall over yourself to sort of prove that the other person isn't up to par. Because obviously she was number one in the world, so she must have obviously felt a certain sense of shame.

11:36But it was such a big win for Coco and I just love her. She was so cute. We love Coco. I know. I know. So good to see Coco on top. Excited for Wimbledon, which is coming up. The BET Awards were this week too, weren't they? Yeah, Dochi accepted Best Female Hip Hop Artist, and she had a very moving speech about immigration policies, and so that felt like it's hard to hit the right note with political speeches, but I thought that threaded the needle correctly. but yes it's been it's been a tough week here there's been a lot of discussion about how vogue can and should be covering what's happening in la obviously we've been talking a lot about the la garment factories and how much is produced in downtown la there vogue business is working on a story about that wire did a great piece about how to safely protest and sort of what to bring with you and what to wear and I thought that was well handled.

12:37But yes, it's definitely, it's a tough moment. It just feels like, I honestly question if there is a safe way to protest because it feels like there's quite, there's a real force there with the National Guard there and that feels like it has escalated things to a level that feels difficult, challenging.

13:02We'll be back with Julianne Moore in just a moment.

13:29or some of my extraordinarily well-informed colleagues at The New Yorker. So join us every week on The New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts.

13:44And we're back. Julian, we are very excited to have you. This is a big treat for us. And happy to be here. Thanks, guys. I have to tell you that all of the ladies and gentlemen in the Vogue office are extremely invested in sirens. I can't believe—I mean, I have to say, this has been—I texted Megan today saying, like, can you believe this? Like, everybody's seen it. It's nuts. Taylor and I were sort of prepping for this interview right in front—and Taylor sits in front of Anna's office. And one of Anna's assistants goes, stop! I'm on the last episode. I'm saying too much. Totally. Totally. Because I confess I haven't finished it.

14:21So I was getting Chloe to sort of like fill me in. Because I find the last episode quite Shakespearean. It's pretty great, right? It's really amazing. It's a wonderful reveal. You won't be surprised. Did you gasp when you first read it? And did you anticipate that kind of reveal for Michaela? I knew it was coming. The thing about this kind of television, too, is that you don't actually—they have an outline. They know how it's going to end. They don't know exactly how. So it's like we had the first couple of scripts and then Molly was sort of developing things as we worked. And so there were things that were changing a little bit.

14:54But I knew what the final moment was going to be. Yeah. Wow. I wonder if there was any inspiration for Michaela. Because for me it sort of felt almost Daphne du Maurier-esque. There was an all about Eve thing. Like there were lots of different strains of anti-heroines. She is definitely a constructed personality. That was what was fun about it. But I think about what she's projecting, what she cares about, and what her position is in that. And so, you know, you learn later on that her position is pretty tenuous. She experiences that way. So that makes her projection that much more forceful. Had you ever worked with falcons before?

15:34I love birds. So, you know, I'm a bird person. Really? Yeah, I had an African gray at one point. Wow. And I like handling birds, and I've handled them quite a bit. They got very lucky. Well, they did kind of, right? Not everyone can say they handle birds. I didn't lead with that, right? But I've never handled falcons before, big, big birds. So that was fun, and they were sweet. And I don't know if you saw the third episode. I did. Okay, so there's a moment when I'm talking to Simone, Millie, and I have my hand up, and I've been talking to the bird, who was a really young, very sweet bird, who was kind of nervous, didn't even want to take food from me, which is a little piece of raw chicken.

16:14You didn't want to take that. But I'd been talking to him and stroking him and just kind of sitting there. And so my hand was like this. And I'm talking to Millie. And in the middle of the scene, he hopped on my hand. Do you remember that? I thought he was going to say it. He bit off my finger. No, no, no. He just hopped on. And I was like, I just better be in the show. Yeah, I love them. I love them. I mean, they're used to people. It's fun. We've had a lot of discussion in our office about the clothes on Sirens. One of our writers wrote about sort of nailing, spoke to the costume designer about nailing these sort of exaggerated, almost camp preppy aesthetic.

16:48But I feel like Michaela's clothes were the only wardrobe, one really coveted from the show. Thank you very much. Yeah, Caroline Duncan and I worked on that pretty closely. It's like she has a higher fashion pitch than everybody else. She's the, you know, she's the queen bee. Yes. So she wants to differentiate herself and signal her power. So we talked about keeping her in, you know, ivories a lot. Grecian. Things kind of, yeah. the whole kind of you goddess stuff and stuff that's not particularly practical right? Did you keep anything? I did but I actually get a laugh because the outfit that I kept was the one that I wore at the very end of the show the one that you wear someone you wear because I was like that I'll wear that was a suede Kate jacket I loved it I was like I really want this jacket and a pair of row jeans that I loved and this great sweater and yeah that's what I kept Do you often or ever bring any of your own clothes onto set?

17:49I try to avoid it. Sometimes I bring shoes because I'm really particular about how my shoes fit and whether or not I can walk in them. And so I'm familiar with my own. I'll bring those. But, you know, costumes get dirty. You get makeup on them. You're kind of in dirty places. And so if you have something really nice, you don't want to bring it to work.

18:08I want to know if Michaela's life at Cliff House has any correlation to Julianne's life in Montauk. Oh, no, no, no. As a matter of fact, I went to the beverage store in Montauk last weekend to get my case of Lemon LaCroix and my mini Diet Pepsis and stuff. And I'm in there and the woman that I know from the beverage store was saying, like, I really love that show. But wow, she's not like you at all. I don't think Kiki buys her own mini Diet Pepsi. That's funny. I mean, you started by saying that you noticed that everyone's watching this show. And one of the things that I'm so curious about is the way a show like this pops off now.

18:51And, you know, you've been at this a long time. You've been a lot of, like, big blockbuster-y movies that have big, you know, premieres and box office numbers. And then now we're in a new era where something like Sirens starts to dominate the conversation. And what are your thoughts on that? And how do you become aware of something like this really hitting the zeitgeist? You know, because it's different now than it used to be. Tech, just, you know, generally has changed everything for us. It's changed the way we consume entertainment, the way we communicate, our sense of the world and its size.

19:24You know, it's really been – we'll look back and see this as a revolution, I think. And so for us in our business, it's consumed differently. it kind of permeates culture differently it happens really really fast that's what i noticed because even if you were in a blockbuster movie when when when they were thriving you felt it but it sort of it was longer it was a longer build right and now it's fast like everything happens all at once yeah i just wonder from your end if if you feel the same sort of gratification with these projects that percolate differently throughout the culture i do think that as as an actor, I've always had to do my work for myself because I love it.

20:04I really enjoy it. And I can't have any expectation about how it's going to be received in the world and who's going to watch it because I can't control that. So there's things that I've had great experiences with that have been, you know, maybe not been consumed until like 10 years later, you know? So your dad's movie, for example, is something that was really important to me and was a theater project that took five years and then we shot it in two weeks. And then it's become, you know, as the years go on, it's just become this classic people refer to. Well, thanks to Criterion in large part.

20:43I mean, it wasn't available for a long time. It was a production of Vanya at the sort of derelict Victory Theater in the early 90s. And Andre Gregory was having voluntary workshops that were over years. But he would only invite like four to five people to come to each one. And it became this thing in New York where people were, it was a must see because you couldn't see it. So it's sort of the opposite of streaming. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And then Louis filmed it and then people still really couldn't see it. I couldn't see it for a long time. I know, I know. I know. my family all thinks very fondly on that production because that was his last film it was great it was a great experience for me too it really was I also on the way home last night walked by everyone breaking down the red carpet for Echo Valley so you live uptown I live uptown I'm on the Upper West Side and so then that's the next thing that's coming out into the world and I loved your Velvet Alaya dress thank you, me too I love that dress.

21:49How did you pick that? Well, they offered, they wanted to make me a custom dress. And I was really grateful to Peter and very, very excited. And they, you know, because he's just, he's so gifted. I mean, we loved the drawing. It was just amazing. It's so beautiful. I was in Cannes for the carrying dinner and they came for fitting and put it on me. And I was like, this is amazing. But they made it like lickety-split. It's really gorgeous. It's beautiful. Well, I was sort of, you guys were talking about your dad's movie. And I was just thinking about nostalgia. And one of the things I loved about Echo Valley, which I had a lot of fun watching.

22:21Oh, you saw it? Oh, good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's too stressful for me. I mean, this is like a mother's worst nightmare kind of thriller, honestly. But I just thought to myself, I wish they made more movies like this. I feel like, you know, 20 years ago, there were more sort of like, you know, fun, twisty thrillers that would come out. And now it feels like if it's not, you know, robots and dinosaurs and, you know, superheroes, it's got to be tiny, tiny little indie something or other. And this movie was in the middle, and I was so appreciative of that. Thank you. This also feels like maybe even the throwback to, like, the thrillers of the 40s, actually, to me.

22:54That's true. Like, when I read it, it felt like those traditional kind of interesting, surprising, mysterious, like, women's pictures that they used to make. That's such a good point. There was a woman at the center of a narrative, and it was often a domestic narrative, a domestic situation with a partner or with a child or in a town. And then it would start to unfold. and they were always ordinary women. You know, this is a woman who's really trying to hold her life together after the death of her spouse and trying to hold on to the farm that she maintains by herself and has a daughter who's struggling with addiction.

23:26So she has all of these kind of enormously painful things that are happening. But she's ordinary, right? She's just a regular person. And in the face of all this adversity, she ends up being really, really surprising. And those are the movies that I think we used to see. Yeah. It's really, it's a lot of fun. You guys, the last, I mean, the last act of this movie is really remarkable because the way Julianne comes across in the beginning of the movie, extremely vulnerable, extremely sort of like beset by circumstance. It's really, it's one of the pleasures of the movie is how it turns around and suddenly you're like, you're completely in control.

24:02And you're like, wait a second. And that's Brad Inglesby, who's our wonderful writer. And I can remember I had COVID when I read the script. I remember. Oh, wow. Yeah, I was sitting in my bed and I was like, oh, I'm so sick. And I was like, oh, my God. It's just such a – it's a really wonderful reveal. Well, can we talk a little bit about the motherhood angle of it? Because we were talking about our kids before we started. And, you know, my daughter's 13, so I'm not quite where you are as your character with Sydney Sweeney, who's like a grown-up. But I just thought to myself, oh, my gosh, this is pulling all those parental triggers of like, you know, a mother's worst nightmare.

24:39And tell me, is that something that sort of you thought about and drew you to the script? Or, you know, of course you're a mother yourself, so did you bring any of your own thoughts about, you know, maternal responsibility to the performance? How did you think about it? I think I thought about her a lot. I thought about this character and what she felt she had to lose and what she was trying to hold on to. And she's not someone who's necessarily handling her daughter's addiction in the way— if you're going to look at it clinically and say, like, what are the steps and how do you help someone? You have to let them help themselves.

25:12So she's someone who definitely feels like she's compromised in lots of ways. But it's everything that she does, and it's very morally complicated. She does out of love. So what I did think about is that she's not thinking very far ahead. She's just thinking, how do I get from point A to point B? Her daughter comes home. She's wet and she's cold and she's crying and she's covered in blood. And so the first thing she says is calm down. Just calm down. Just take a deep breath. And guys, we should say that the daughter is played by Sydney Sweeney. Yeah. So. Yeah, she's wonderful. I don't think we'd said that yet.

25:44Yeah. So she's, and then she says, you know, she goes, and then she sees the blood on her and she says, are you hurt? So that's the next step. Yeah. My daughter, my child must be hurt. And then she says, no, I'm not hurt. It's someone else's blood. And so you realize step by step by step, she's learning about this and making decisions. So it's not like she goes from like A to Z. You know, she really goes from A to B to C, you know, and it all adds up. I mean, it's so human. That's the thing. It's like you really want to think of yourself as going by the clinical route or exactly what you're supposed to do.

26:16But we all know that in those kind of moments, you're just going to sort of operate by instinct. Swim to the bottom of the lake. Yes. Did you swim to the bottom of the lake? Of course you didn't, but there's a lot of underwater stuff. I swam to the bottom of a tank. That's what I did. I swam to the bottom of a tank. So all of this stuff that you see in the exteriors is in an actual lake in New Jersey. And that lake is a cold lake. And I had a real rowboat. And I really, you know, jumped off and did all that stuff. But then when we go underwater, that's a tank in London. In London? In London. Interesting.

26:45In Pinewood. And I've never done any tank work. And I've never worked with a regulator. I've never done scuba stuff at all. No James Cameron movies. No, no, no, no. So you have a couple. You have an afternoon of training using the regulator. And then you do it. And basically, I also learned I'm very floaty. Like, I think I have hollow bones. I just sort of pop up to the top. So my diver companion, I'd put the regulator in, and she'd push me all the way down. She was less floating. She has all that equipment on. She'd push me down, and I'd have to, in order to not pop up, I'd have to hold on to things at the bottom, all the fake stuff, so I could pull myself along.