January is a busy
month for Julianne Moore, the star of the upcoming film Hannibal
and the recipient of the Piper Heidseick Lifetime Achievement Award at the Sundance
Film Festival. This morning, she has flown from New York to Utah to receive
the festival's Tenth Annual Lifetime Achievement Award.

The day's schedule
brings a press conference, an awards ceremony (including a tribute to Ms. Moore
featuring no less then than Lyle Lovett and Wallace Shawn), and an evening party
sponsored by Piper-Heidseick champagne. Two days later, she will head to Los
Angeles to present an award at the Golden Globes. In a week she begins a worldwide
press tour for Hannibal (including a stop at the Berlinale).

Given this whirlwind
schedule, she has every reason to look tired, but she looks luminous -- her
face glows and her strawberry blond hair shines as she walks into the press
conference. She is wearing a cream colored sweater and matching pants and there's
nothing diva-esque about her. Tthe conference room has been filled because this
woman is, a diva -- at least in the performing sense -- but Julianne Moore downplays
so many of her accomplishments that everyone leaves feeling as though they've
met the Girl Next Door. If the Girl Next Door grew up and became one of the
world's leading A-list Actresses.

"I'm sort of overwhelmed
by my good fortune," she says at the start. "When you're 17 and you tell
your family you want to be an actress, they sort of roll their eyes at you ...
to get to the place where you actually are one is really incredible. It's not
like I'm doing anybody any favors by being in their movies."

But then again,
maybe she is. Just ask Festival
Director Geoffrey Gilmore, "Julianne has the kind of charismatic talent that
magnetically draws one to a film simply because she appears in it."

It took her a decade
to convince the film world of this. After graduating from Boston University's
School of Performing Arts, Moore headed to the Big Apple to pursue her acting
dream. In less than two years, she landed a starring role on the soap opera
"As the World Turns," for which she eventually won a Daytime Emmy.
Less than 10 years later, her break came when she was cast in The Fugitive
opposite Harrison Ford. Since then she has worked with some of the world's greatest
directors, on films such as Magnolia, An Ideal Husband, Cookie's Fortune,
and The End of the Affair.

When asked questions,
Moore gives a shy smile after answering, like a teenager unsure of speaking
the wrong answer in class. She gives a goofball laugh at the photographer whose
lens practically touches her face for a close-up.

What's also refreshing
is the fact that Moore's answers are peppered with gracious and/or modest answers
-- to the point that she almost forgets the question.

In fact, her first
comment about Hannibal is a direct compliment to her acting party Anthony
Hopkins (who she calls "Tony"). "You couldn't ask for a better acting
a partner than Tony," she says. Then she gets to the film. "I
still haven't seen Hannibal, but Ridley really liked it and he's very
hard on himself," she says, managing to praise yet another coworker. And yet
there's more: "as
an actress you're concerned with doing justice to the part. Jodie Foster was
so great and so memorable my concern was that I would do it justice."

So what about Hannibal?

It's still not
clear what she thinks, but she definitely has newfound respect for her
peers.

When asked if she'd
like to win an Academy Award, she says, "it sounds really corny but it's really
great to get nominated for an Oscar." Her eyes widen as she recalls thinking
"wow! I'm on TV!" during the broadcast.

When Moore found
out via fax that she'd been selected for Sundance's award, she says, "it kind
of floored me to be in the company of people who have one. I can't think of
a better thing."

This "company"
includes some of the most celebrated actors of the past decade. Past recipients
have included Kevin Spacey (2001), Frances McDormand (1998), and Denzel Washington
(1993).

And
now that she's at the festival, Moore is clearly enjoying herself. "It's really
fun because Sundance is a great party. People who come to see the movies are
fans truly dedicated to the art of film." This is, according to Moore, the best
part about being an actress: "when you realize that you're giving people something
to talk about and to care about."

Someone asks her
about her place in life. Does she strive for better roles, for better parts?

"I really like
the point I'm at now," she says. Moore has a three-year old son, a husband (Bart
Freundlich) with whom she produces. As far as acting goes, "the best thing in
the world is to get a job."

Unemployment for
Julianne Moore seems as far away as her soap opera days.

Kerry
Shaw