Julianne Moore names the single worst movie of her career: “It’s about nothing”
There’s always going to be a few movies that an actor regrets, or at least just ignores, because no filmography is ever going to be perfect. Unless you’re John Cazale, who exclusively starred in ‘Best Picture’ nominees, you’ve probably got a few duds under your belt.
Julianne Moore might have an Oscar and a large collection of popular and acclaimed movies to her name, but she still admits that she has appeared in some rather forgettable or just downright bad movies.
Forget The Big Lebowski, Boogie Nights, Still Alice, and Magnolia, what about the movies that Moore would rather pretend she wasn’t involved in? She probably wishes her film debut wasn’t in the critically panned Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, but everyone has to start somewhere, right? You can hardly be embarrassed about a first role, though – what’s more humiliating is taking on a role clearly destined for disaster when you’re already an established star.
Can you blame an actor for some of the bad movies they’ve picked though? Perhaps they really did think that it had a chance of success, or maybe they just needed a quick cheque. I’m not here to judge.
Take 6 Souls, also known as Shelter, the 2010 horror movie that Moore led to disastrous results. Critics tore the film apart, and you’d think that Moore would learn her lesson, but over the next few years, she starred in a few more box-office and critical stinkers, like the unnecessary Carrie remake in which she played Margaret White (Piper Laurie’s performance remains unbeaten), and Seventh Son, a fantasy film that proved to be a massive failure.
Now, I don’t want to be too mean, because Moore is a great actor, but she is proof that you can still appear in some absolute classics while making the mistake of selecting some terrible choices in the meantime. That’s really the nature of being a Hollywood star, though – it’s hit and miss.
But what does Moore think is her most pointless cinematic endeavour? Is it Body of Evidence, that terrible erotic Madonna film, or how about Gus Van Sant’s bizarre Psycho remake? Talking to the Guardian, she initially refused to select her worst movie, “I’m never going to say that,” before admitting that “Next is pretty bad.”
“It’s about nothing. It’s about two hours long! I think I’m an FBI agent in it,” she explained. Released in 2007, the movie saw Nicolas Cage star as a magician with precognition skills who is targeted by a terrorist group. While it had potential due to the fact that it was inspired by a Philip K Dick story, whose work has previously spawned adaptations like Blade Runner and Minority Report, Next was a total failure.
It says a lot when Moore can’t even remember clearly what her role was – that’s how forgettable it was. It underperformed at the box office, and even the actor was criticised for being rather underwhelming in her role. There’s nothing special about Next, and for that, Moore thinks it’s one of the worst turns of her career.
