How Long Do You Think You’re Going to Live?

From The Week (July 24, 2009):

Julianne Moore doesn’t mind calling herself “middle-aged,” says Gaby Wood in British Vogue. “When people say, ‘I’m not middle-aged,’ you want to say, ‘Well, exactly how long do you think you’re going to live?’” the 48-year-old actress says. “It becomes so tedious after a while, this idea that everybody’s so focused on being young. Whenever you ask anybody, ‘Would you want to be 20 again?’ invariably they go, ‘No.’ You don’t want to repeat it—you want to be what you are.” In Moore’s case, youth was not only a time of personal confusion; it was a time when she couldn’t find work. “When I was auditioning for movies in the ’80s, I never got anything. They made a lot of movies about young people doing things, like St. Elmo’s Fire. I got my first movie role when I was 29, which was considered really old. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone my age. It was horrible—so stupid and awkward—and I found it really oppressive. I was, like, I can’t do this anymore! What is the problem with telling people I’m 30, 31, 32?” She got her breakthrough in indie films, and her career took off after that. Moore’s now fully content with both her professional life and her personal one—she’s married, with two children—and the recent sudden death of friend Natasha Richardson helped put things in perspective. “I’m lucky to be 48, and not be … not here. I’m never going to be 48 again—48’s over after this year.”