Movies, Motherhood & Oscar Night Memories

THE MAY DECEMBER COSTARS CHAT ABOUT THEIR LIVES AS WORKING PARENTS AND THEIR PROVOCATIVE NEW FILM

- MIA MCNIECE

double talk

NATALIE PORTMAN & JULIANNE MOORE

Sometimes it’s the director or the script that draws Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman to a particular role. But sometimes it’s simply the chance to earn cool mom points. “A large part of my decision-making right now is what can I do to impress my kids,” says Portman, 42, mom to Aleph, 12, and Amalia, 6. Her role as Mighty Thor in the Marvel films delivers: “Getting to be on the Thor set and fly around with stuntmen was very cool for them.” Although Moore’s two children, Caleb, 26, and Liv, 21, are older, she too has chosen parts because of them. “I’m only in The Hunger Games because my daughter was reading it. I picked it up and was like, ‘This is amazing.’ It might have been the only thing my kids ever cared about that I was in,” Moore, 63, says of the 2014 hit.

But with their latest film, May December—which is decidedly not kid-friendly— the big draw for the two Oscar winners was the chance to work together for the first time. In the Todd Haynes-directed dark comedy loosely inspired by the Mary Kay Letourneau affair, Portman plays an actress researching a part in a film portraying a woman (Moore) who begins a scandalous romance with a 13-year-old boy (Charles Melton) she later marries. The actresses bonded on the Savannah set. Says Moore: “I’m so grateful we connected.”

Do you remember the first time you met?