Julianne Moore is wearing little to no make-up and killer platform boots. And her laugh — she laughs a lot — is infectious. The whole casually sexy vibe is a far cry from Barbara Baekeland, the eccentric, socialite wife of a Bakelite plastics heir whose tragic life unfurls in Moore's latest feature film, Savage Grace.

Moore plays Baekeland from the 1940s to the '70s, bewildered, disconnected from her philandering husband (Stephen Dillane) and sinking her claws ever deeper into the nubile skin of her strange son (Eddie Redmayne). Later this summer comes Blindness, a film based on the Nobel-Prize-winning novel, in which she plays a more modest figure: the only sighted woman in a community stricken with a sudden, terrifying malady.

Moore has built a career making such formidable roles look effortless. She became the ninth person to receive two Academy Award nominations in the same year — best actress (Far From Heaven) and best supporting actress (The Hours).

She also earned Oscar nominations for The End of the Affair and Boogie Nights and critical acclaim for films such as Magnolia, Short Cuts, and The Myth of Fingerprints. A Myth bonus — she fell for and married writer-director Bart Freundlich. The couple now lives in Manhattan with their two children, Caleb (10) and Liv (6).

Barbara Baekeland is larger-than-life. Did the role require a lot of prep?

I hate to say it, but I really don't do a lot of research. If my character is some kind of mountain climber, then I'll go out and take a look at the equipment. But I'm not one of those people who climbs a mountain for eight months to really absorb it. I'm just — I'm kind of — I'm just lazy.

Well, you've also got two kids.

Even before I had kids. That said, we did have the book [Savage Grace, by Natalie Robins and Steven ML Aronson]. Barbara's described as this monstrously narcissistic, boundary-less person. She has no awareness of where she ends and the world begins.

So is she the hero or the villain?

There are some who said she was the life of the party. Others said, "I couldn't stand her.'' She was probably a sociopath, but she was a person, so it's my responsibility to make her human.

What's this I hear about you and birds?

Oh, I like birds, yeah. I had a big African gray — parrot-sized. He's living with my friend in California now. He was nutty and demanding, and I had a dog who loved chasing birds, so it wasn't a good match. But I think they're pretty.

I heard you're also quite the decorator, and have done a few homes.

It sounds crazy to say you're really interested in furniture, but I am. I like to create environments. But you have to really look around. That's the tough part, particularly if you're trying to save money. A lot of it is just looking and looking and looking. You have to be patient.

I'm reading Blindness now and heard you're playing the doctor's wife. That's quite a role.

Yeah, it's pretty harrowing. [My character's] heroism takes her by surprise. She was never planning on being any kind of a leader.

You went blonde for the role.

That was my idea. I just didn't picture her with red hair. We were about to start the movie, and Fernando Meirelles said, "So I think I want you to cut your hair ... and be a little fat.''

He said that?

Yeah. [Laughter.] I wear a suit at the beginning — there wasn't enough time for me to gain and lose weight. Probably would've gained it and never been able to take it off. He didn't care about hair colour, but to me, red just felt too strong. So I bleached it. I'll never do that again. It's not who I am.

By Joseph V Amodio, Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service

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