Julianne Moore has found that the older she gets, the less consumed she is with her looks.
The Oscar-winning actress, 61, says that the movement away from focusing on her appearance came when she truly became engrossed in the people and the world around her.
“I think it’s because you have other things that you are interested in, such as family, relationships, work or your community. Being myopic about the way you look recedes,” Moore told the Sunday Times.
“I don’t think it goes away entirely, I don’t think there is a person in the world who couldn’t care less; everybody cares somewhat. But the degree to which you are interested in that, and the fruitlessness of that, becomes apparent as you get older.”
Moore knows a thing or two about feeling like her looks separated her from those around her. As a kid, it was her trademark freckles that had her feeling different than everyone else at school.
“When I was growing up in the US, it felt as if no one had freckles. I just wanted to look like every other tanned American kid,” Moore explained. “I hated being the one that couldn’t go to the beach or who had to wear long sleeves. I think that stayed with me a bit.”
She went on to describe something called “mimetic theory of desire,” that details how we want to look like those we see around us.
“It’s the way we relate to each other. It’s hard to go, ‘OK, that’s not what I am.’ I still see somebody in a backless dress with no freckles and I’m like, “Oh! I would love that!”
In the past, Moore has called it “a privilege to continue to age.” She also discussed her feelings about maturing, and her distaste for the phrase “aging gracefully.”
“There’s so much judgement inherent in the term ‘aging gracefully’,” she told As If magazine last year, Yahoo Entertainment previously reported.
“Is there an ungraceful way to age? We don’t have an option of course. No one has an option about aging, so it’s not a positive or a negative thing, it just is.”
