In all the talk over whether this is the year that Annette Bening will finally win an Oscar, Julianne Moore has sometimes gotten short shrift. Moore shares the screen (and a bed) with Bening in “The Kids Are All Right,” with the two playing a longtime couple whose relationship is tested when Moore’s character has an affair with the sperm donor (Mark Ruffalo) who fathered both of their children. 
A four-time Oscar nominee, Moore has lately been the subject of much dialogue about whether she should campaign in the Best Actress or Best Supporting Actress category – though Focus Features is clear that both are Best Actress contenders.
Lisa Cholodenko’s movie, which Moore has been involved with for its entire five-year development process, is clearly based around a pair of lead performances, regardless of what kind of positioning might give its actresses a better shot to win.
Have you been paying any attention to the discussions about whether you should campaign in the supporting or lead category?
You can’t pay attention to that stuff. You can’t. That’s out of your hands. That’s a decision that everybody else in the room makes for you.
I think you’re betraying the movie if you pretend that one of these roles is a lead and the other is supporting.
Exactly, yeah. It’s definitely an ensemble movie, and it’s definitely about these two women who have this relationship.
You were involved from the first draft of the script, weren’t you?
The very first. Lisa and I met at one of those Women in Film lunches, and I approached her and said, “Why didn’t I see the script for ‘High Art’?” I loved that movie and "Laurel Canyon," and I said, “Listen, I really admire your work, and I would love to work with you one day.” We hit it off and stayed in touch, and then probably about a year after that, she sent me the first draft of “The Kids Are All Right” and said, “I really want you to do this movie, and which part do you want to play?” And right away, I said, “I want to play Jules.”
Why Jules?
She’s very warm and loving and soulful, but so lost. That was what was so appealing to me, that she was somebody in complete limbo, and you didn’t know which way she was going to go. And she couldn’t even ground her anxiety. She didn’t know why she felt so unsettled, so disenfranchised, disconnected. That idea of somebody being in the middle of a crisis, and not being able to articulate it, it was really evident to me that I wanted to do that.
Of course, that was a very long five years ago.
What delayed it?
There was a long process of getting the financing, getting it going, in the middle of it Lisa had a baby.
