Freedomland isn't merely the title of
Julianne Moore's new movie. It also describes how this former
Army brat feels about the home she (finally) discovered in
Manhattan two decades ago.
Moore had come to
New York from a roustabout life. Moore, born
Julie Anne Smith in Fayetteville,
North Carolina, had a father who
was a judge in the U.S. Army's Judge Advocate General Corps who
moved his family from base to base:
Alabama,
Georgia, Texas,
Virginia,
New Jersey,
Nebraska, New York,
Alaska,
Panama,
Germany -
all in all, they had two dozen temporary homes around the
world.
After a life on the road, his smart, red-headed, well-read daughter
was able to blend into any surrounding and, later, into any part,
from those in off-Broadway plays to an Emmy-winning dual role as
two half sisters on the
CBS soap As the World Turns to
Oscar-nominated performances in several hit films, ranging from
Boogie Nights to The Hours.
This month, she stars alongside Samuel L. Jackson and Edie Falco in
Freedomland, portraying a suburban woman plunged into a highly
charged and gritty mystery involving her missing child, which tears
her New Jersey neighborhood apart. On the other side of the Hudson
River, in Manhattan, Moore remains the wide-eyed girl getting off
the bus with the suitcase in her hand, marveling over the Big City
where she found a home after a lifetime of traveling.
With her husband, native New Yorker Bart Freundlich, whom she met
when he was directing her in The Myth of Fingerprints, and their
children, Cal, eight, and Liv, three, Moore has settled into the
"way West Village" neighborhood that she dreamed about living in as
a young girl. Here's Julianne Moore's story about the home she
found in the city known for opening its doors to immigrants.
Let's start with the bus. Where did you first arrive in New York
City? Where do buses come into? Port Authority. I stayed with a
friend. There were four of us in a studio apartment with a big dog
while we looked for an apartment. I found a studio on the East Side
and a job at a restaurant waiting on tables. It was called Mumbles,
now called Benjamin's, on 33rd Street and Second Avenue. Basically,
it was one of those things where I just walked into every
restaurant I passed on Second Avenue and asked for a job until I
finally got one.