Being is an extremely broad concept encompassing subjective and objective features of reality and existence^[vague]. Anything that partakes in being is also called a "being", though often this use is limited to entities that have subjectivity (as in the expression "human being").^[vague] So broad a notion has inevitably been elusive and controversial in the history of philosophy,^[vague] beginning in western philosophy with attempts among the pre-Socratics to deploy it intelligibly. As an example of efforts in recent times, Heidegger (who himself drew on ancient Greek sources) adopted German terms like Dasein to articulate the topic.^[1] Several modern approaches build on such continental European exemplars as Heidegger, and apply metaphysical results to the understanding of human psychology and the human condition generally (notably in the Existentialist tradition). By way of contrast, in mainstream Analytical philosophy the topic is more confined to abstract investigation, in the work of such influential theorists as W. V. O. Quine, to name one of many. One most fundamental question that continues to exercise philosophers is put by William James: "How comes the world to be here at all instead of the nonentity which might be imagined in its place? ... from nothing to being there is no logical bridge."^[2]

The substantial being[link]

Being and the substance theorists[link]

The deficit of such a bridge was first encountered in history by the Pre-Socratic philosophers during the process of evolving a classification of all beings (noun). Aristotle applies the term category (perhaps not originally) to ten highest-level classes. They comprise one category of substance (ousiae) existing independently (man, tree) and nine categories of accidents, which can only exist in something else (time, place). In Aristotle, substances are to be clarified by stating their definition: a note expressing a larger class (the genus) followed by further notes expressing specific differences (differentiae) within the class. The substance so defined was a species. For example, the species, man, may be defined as an animal (genus) that is rational (difference). As the difference is potential within the genus; that is, an animal may or may not be rational, the difference is not identical to, and may be distinct from, the genus.

Applied to being the system fails to arrive at a definition for the simple reason that no difference can be found. The species, the genus and the difference are all equally being: a being is a being that is being. The genus cannot be nothing because nothing is not a class of everything. The trivial solution that being is being added to nothing is only a tautology: being is being. There is no simpler intermediary between being and non-being that explains and classifies being.

The being of Parmenides

Pre-Socratic reaction to this deficit was varied. As substance theorists they accepted à priori the hypothesis that appearances are deceiving, that reality is to be reached through reasoning. Parmenides reasoned that if everything is identical to being and being is a category of the same thing then there can be neither differences between things nor any change. To be different, or to change, would amount to becoming or being non-being; that is, not existing. Therefore being is a homogeneous and non-differentiated sphere and the appearance of beings is illusory. Heraclitus, on the other hand, foreshadowed modern thought by denying existence. Reality does not exist, it flows, and beings are an illusion upon the flow.

Aristotle knew of this tradition when he began his Metaphysics, and had already drawn his own conclusion, which he presented under the guise of asking what being is:^[3]

"And indeed the question which was raised of old is raised now and always, and is always the subject of doubt, viz., what being is, is just the question, what is substance? For it is this that some assert to be one, others more than one, and that some assert to be limited in number, others unlimited. And so we also must consider chiefly and primarily and almost exclusively what that is which is in this sense."

and reiterates in no uncertain terms:^[4] "Nothing, then, which is not a species of a genus will have an essence – only species will have it ...."

Aristotle's theory of act and potency[link]

One might expect a solution to follow from such certain language but none does. Instead Aristotle launches into a rephrasing of the problem, the Theory of Act and Potency. In the definition of man as a two-legged animal Aristotle presumes that "two-legged" and "animal" are parts of other beings, but as far as man is concerned, are only potentially man. At the point where they are united into a single being, man, the being, becomes actual, or real. Unity is the basis of actuality:^[5] "... 'being' is being combined and one, and 'not being' is being not combined but more than one." Actuality has taken the place of existence, but Aristotle is no longer seeking to know what the actual is; he accepts it without question as something generated from the potential. He has found a "half-being" or a "pre-being", the potency, which is fully being as part of some other substance. Substances, in Aristotle, unite what they actually are now with everything they might become.

The transcendental being[link]

Some of Thomas Aquinas' propositions were condemned by the local Bishop of Paris (not the Magisterium) in 1270 and 1277^{[citation needed]}, but his dedication to the use of philosophy to elucidate theology was so thorough that he was proclaimed a saint in 1328 and a Doctor of the Church in 1568. Those who adopt it are called Thomists.

St. Thomas' analogy of being[link]

In a single sentence, parallel to Aristotle's statement asserting that being is substance, St. Thomas pushes away from the Aristotelian doctrine:^[6] "Being is not a genus, since it is not predicated univocally but only analogically." His term for analogy is Latin analogia. In the categorical classification of all beings, all substances are partly the same: man and chimpanzee are both animals and the animal part in man is "the same" as the animal part in chimpanzee. Most fundamentally all substances are matter, a theme taken up by science, which postulated one or more matters, such as earth, air, fire or water (Empedocles). In today's chemistry the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen in a chimpanzee are identical to the same elements in a man.

If substance is the highest category and there is no substance, being, then the unity perceived in all beings by virtue of their existing must be viewed in another way. St. Thomas chose the analogy: all beings are like, or analogous to, each other in existing. This comparison is the basis of his Analogy of Being. The analogy is said of being in many different ways, but the key to it is the real distinction between existence and essence. Existence is the principle that gives reality to an essence not the same in any way as the existence: "If things having essences are real, and it is not of their essence to be, then the reality of these things must be found in some principle other than (really distinct from) their essence."^[7] Substance can be real or not. What makes an individual substance – a man, a tree, a planet – real is a distinct act, a "to be", which actuates its unity. An analogy of proportion is therefore possible:^[7] "essence is related to existence as potency is related to act."

Existences are not things; they do not themselves exist, they lend themselves to essences, which do not intrinsically have them. They have no nature; an existence receives its nature from the essence it actuates. Existence is not being; it gives being – here a customary phrase is used, existence is a principle (a source) of being, not a previous source, but one which is continually in effect. The stage is set for the concept of God as the cause of all existence, who, as the Almighty, holds everything actual without reason or explanation as an act purely of will.

The transcendentals[link]

Aristotle's classificatory scheme had included the five predicables, or characteristics that might be predicated of a substance. One of these was the property, an essential universal true of the species, but not in the definition (in modern terms, some examples would be grammatical language, a property of man, or a spectral pattern characteristic of an element, both of which are defined in other ways). Pointing out that predicables are predicated univocally of substances; that is, they refer to "the same thing" found in each instance, St. Thomas argued that whatever can be said about being is not univocal, because all beings are unique, each actuated by a unique existence. It is the analogous possession of an existence that allows them to be identified as being; therefore, being is an analogous predication.

Whatever can be predicated of all things is universal-like but not universal, category-like but not a category. St. Thomas called them (perhaps not originally) the transcendentia, "transcendentals", because they "climb above" the categories, just as being climbs above substance. Later academics also referred to them as "the properties of being."^[8] The number is generally three or four.

Being in Islamic philosophy[link]

This section requires expansion.

The nature of "being" has also been debated and explored in Islamic philosophy, notably by Ibn Sina, Suhrawardi, and Mulla Sadra.^[9]

Being in the Age of Reason[link]

Although innovated in the late medieval period, Thomism was dogmatized in the Renaissance. From roughly 1277 to 1567, it dominated the philosophic landscape. The rationalist philosophers, however, with a new emphasis on Reason as a tool of the intellect, brought the classical and medieval traditions under new scrutiny, exercising a new concept of doubt, with varying outcomes. Foremost among the new doubters were the empiricists, the advocates of scientific method, with its emphasis on experimentation and reliance on evidence gathered from sensory experience. In parallel with the revolutions against rising political absolutism based on established religion and the replacememt of faith by reasonable faith, new systems of metaphysics were promulgated in the lecture halls by charismatic professors, such as Immanuel Kant, Nietzsche and Hegel. Although influential for a time their popularity did not generally survive the horrors of ideological warfare, as the competing ideologies utilized their systems in their platforms. The late 19th and 20th centuries featured an emotional return to the concept of existence under the name of existentialism. These philosophers were concerned mainly with ethics and religion. The metaphysical side became the domain of the phenomenalists. In parallel with these philosophies Thomism continued under the protection of the Catholic Church; in particular, the Jesuit order.

Empiricist doubts[link]

Rationalism and empiricism have had many definitions, most concerned with specific schools of philosophy or groups of philosophers in particular countries, such as Germany. In general rationalism is the predominant school of thought in the multi-national, cross-cultural Age of reason, which began in the century straddling 1600 as a conventional date,^[10] empiricism is the reliance on sensory data^[11] gathered in experimentation by scientists of any country, who, in the Age of Reason were rationalists. An early professed empiricist, Thomas Hobbes, known as an eccentric denizen of the court of Charles II of England (an "old bear"), published in 1651 Leviathan, a political treatise written during the English civil war, containing an early manifesto in English of rationalism.

Hobbes said:^[12]

"The Latines called Accounts of mony Rationes ... and thence it seems to proceed that they extended the word Ratio, to the faculty of Reckoning in all other things....When a man reasoneth hee does nothing else but conceive a summe totall ... For Reason ... is nothing but Reckoning ... of the consequences of generall names agreed upon, for the marking and signifying of our thoughts ...."

In Hobbes reasoning is the right process of drawing conclusions from definitions (the "names agreed upon"). He goes on to define error as self-contradiction of definition ("an absurdity, or senselesse Speech"^[13]) or conclusions that do not follow the definitions on which they are supposed to be based. Science, on the other hand, is the outcome of "right reasoning," which is based on "natural sense and imagination", a kind of sensitivity to nature, as "nature it selfe cannot erre."

Having chosen his ground carefully Hobbes launches an epistemological attack on metaphysics. The academic philosophers had arrived at the Theory of Matter and Form from consideration of certain natural paradoxes subsumed under the general heading of the Unity Problem. For example, a body appears to be one thing and yet it is distributed into many parts. Which is it, one or many? Aristotle had arrived at the real distinction between matter and form, metaphysical components whose interpenetration produces the paradox. The whole unity comes from the substantial form and the distribution into parts from the matter. Inhering in the parts giving them really distinct unities are the accidental forms. The unity of the whole being is actuated by another really distinct principle, the existence.

If nature cannot err, then there are no paradoxes in it; to Hobbes, the paradox is a form of the absurd, which is inconsistency:^[14] "Natural sense and imagination, are not subject to absurdity" and "For error is but a deception ... But when we make a generall assertion, unlesse it be a true one, the possibility of it is inconceivable. And words whereby we conceive nothing but the sound, are those we call Absurd ...." Among Hobbes examples are "round quadrangle", "immaterial substance", "free subject."^[13] Of the scholastics he says:^[15]

"Yet they will have us beleeve, that by the Almighty power of God, one body may be at one and the same time in many places [the problem of the universals]; and many bodies at one and the same time in one place [the whole and the parts]; ... And these are but a small part of the Incongruencies they are forced to, from their disputing philosophically, in stead of admiring, and adoring of the Divine and Incomprehensible Nature ...."

The real distinction between essence and existence, and that between form and matter, which served for so long as the basis of metaphysics, Hobbes identifies as "the Error of Separated Essences."^[16] The words "Is, or Bee, or Are, and the like" add no meaning to an argument nor do derived words such as "Entity, Essence, Essentially, Essentiality", which "are the names of nothing"^[17] but are mere "Signes" connecting "one name or attribute to another: as when we say, A man, is, a living body, wee mean not that the Man is one thing, the Living Body another, and the Is, or Being another: but that the Man, and the Living Body, is the same thing;...." "Metaphysiques," Hobbes says, is "far from the possibility of being understood" and is "repugnant to naturall Reason."^[18]

Being to Hobbes (and the other empiricists) is the physical universe:^[19]

The world, (I mean ... the Universe, that is, the whole masse of all things that are) is corporeall, that is to say, Body; and hath the dimension of magnitude, namely, Length, Bredth and Depth: also every part of Body, is likewise Body ... and consequently every part of the Universe is Body, and that which is not Body, is no part of the Universe: and because the Universe is all, that which is no part of it is nothing; and consequently no where."

Hobbes' view is representative of his tradition. As Aristotle offered the categories and the act of existence, and Aquinas the analogy of being, the rationalists also had their own system, the great chain of being, an interlocking hierarchy of beings from God to dust.

Idealist systems[link]

In addition to the materialism of the empiricists, under the same aegis of Reason, rationalism produced systems that were diametrically opposed now called idealism, which denied the reality of matter in favor of the reality of mind. By a 20th-century classification, the idealists (Kant, Hegel and others), are considered the beginning of continental philosophy, while the empiricists are the beginning, or the immediate predecessors, of analytical philosophy.^{[citation needed]}

Being in continental philosophy and existentialism[link]

Some philosophers deny that the concept of "being" has any meaning at all, since we only define an object's existence by its relation to other objects, and actions it undertakes. The term "I am" has no meaning by itself; it must have an action or relation appended to it. This in turn has led to the thought that "being" and nothingness are closely related, developed in existential philosophy.

Existentialist philosophers such as Sartre, as well as continental philosophers such as Hegel and Heidegger have also written extensively on the concept of being. Hegel distinguishes between the being of objects (being in itself) and the being of people (Geist). Hegel, however, did not think there was much hope for delineating a "meaning" of being, because being stripped of all predicates is simply nothing.

Heidegger, in his quest to re-pose the original pre-Socratic question of Being, wondered at how to meaningfully ask the question of the meaning of being, since it is both the greatest, as it includes everything that is, and the least, since no particular thing can be said of it. He distinguishes between different modes of beings: a privative mode is present-at-hand, whereas beings in a fuller sense are described as ready-to-hand. The one who asks the question of Being is described as Da-sein ("there/here-being") or being-in-the-world. Sartre, popularly understood as misreading Heidegger (an understanding supported by Heidegger's essay "Letter on Humanism" which responds to Sartre's famous address, "Existentialism is a Humanism"), employs modes of being in an attempt to ground his concept of freedom ontologically by distinguishing between being-in-itself and being-for-itself.

Being is also understood as one's "state of being," and hence its common meaning is in the context of human (personal) experience, with aspects that involve expressions and manifestations coming from an innate "being", or personal character. Heidegger coined the term "dasein" for this property of being in his influential work Being and Time ("this entity which each of us is himself…we shall denote by the term 'dasein.'"^[1]), in which he argued that being or dasein links one's sense of one's body to one's perception of world. Heidegger, amongst others, referred to an innate language as the foundation of being, which gives signal to all aspects of being.

Gilson's theory of animate versus indeterminate[link]

As nothing cannot be known by any means or method it must mean, in the context of the question, that a specific named object is present or not present in the observer's experience of a set of objects, conditions for which English uses "is" or "is not." The object therefore cannot be the same, at least in language, as its being present, as it may or may not be present. French Academy member Étienne Gilson summarized this long-known characteristic of the experienced world as follows:^[20]

"...the word being is a noun ... it signifies either a being (that is, the substance, nature, and essence of anything existent), or being itself, a property common to all that which can rightly be said to be. ... the same word is the present participle of the verb 'to be.' As a verb, it no longer signifies something that is, nor even existence in general, but rather the very act whereby any given reality actually is, or exists. Let us call this act a 'to be,' in contradistinction to what is commonly called 'a being.' It appears at once that, at least to the mind, the relation of 'to be' to 'being' is not a reciprocal one. 'Being' is conceivable, 'to be' is not. We cannot possibly conceive an 'is' except as belonging to some thing that is, or exists. But the reverse is not true. Being is quite conceivable apart from actual existence; so much so that the very first and the most universal of all the distinctions in the realm of being is that which divides it into two classes, that of the real and that of the possible."

Whether or not an object is present in a set; that is, exists there as a being, is based on universal experience or evidence of it. Existing objects are present to the experience of anyone. It is a legitimate goal therefore for philosophers of being to try to find a principle or element – a "something" – accounting for the presence of the object over the other possibility, its non-presence. Instead, the philosopher encounters a problem:^[21]

"Now, if the 'to be' of a thing could be conceived apart from that which exists, it should be represented in our mind by some note distinct from the concept of the thing itself .... In point of fact, it is not so. There is nothing we can add to a concept in order to make it represent the object as existing; what happens if we add anything to it is that it represents something else."

Where being, the noun, is readily accessible to experience and classifiable, being, the participle, is not:^[22]

"In short ... philosophy may perhaps be able to tell us everything about that which reality is, but nothing at all concerning this not unimportant detail: the actual existence, or non-existence, of what we call reality .... If he himself [the philosopher] did not exist, he would not be there to ask questions about the nature of reality ... on the other hand, this fundamental fact, which we call existence, soon proves a rather barren topic for philosophic speculation ... It certainly looks like a waste of time to speculate about an object which is clearly recognized as inconceivable"

This is not a rejection of existence by Gilson, a leading modern metaphysician in the classical tradition: "philosophers are wholly justified in taking existence for granted ... and in never mentioning it again ...." In Gilson's view, the participial being is a given, a primitive of experience, not subject to proof or investigation, as it is the grounds of proof. A thing must be real, or exist, before anything true or proved can be said about it.

However, Gilson concedes some doubt on the possibility of being wrong:^[23] "yet, this is taking a chance, for, after all, being itself might happen not to be existentially neutral. In other words, it is quite possible that actual existence may be ... an efficient cause of observable effects ...." He then launches into a history of attempts to conceptualize the inconceivable from the ancient Greeks to the present.

Some philosophers who have had more noteworthy theories are Parmenides, Leucippus, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Plotinus, Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel, Heidegger, and Sartre.

Quotations[link]

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being. - Carl Jung

Under the heading ‘Individuality in Thought and Desire’, Karl Marx, (German Ideology 1845), says:

"It depends not on consciousness, but on being; not on thought, but on life; it depends on the individual's empirical development and manifestation of life, which in turn depends on the conditions existing in the world."

See also[link]

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Gilson, Étienne (1952). Being and Some Philosophers (2nd corrected and enlarged ed.). Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (PIMS). 
• Hobbes, Thomas (1904) [1651]. Waller, Alfred Rayney. ed. Leviathan: or, The matter, forme & power of a commonwealth, ecclesiasticall and civill. Cambridge: University Press. 
• Kreyche, Robert J. (1959). First Philosophy: An Introductory Text in Metaphysics. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 

External links[link]

Look up being in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Corazzon, Raul (2010). "Theory and History of Ontology from a Philosophical Perspective". www.ontology.co. http://www.ontology.co/being.htm. Retrieved 9 October 2010. 

Paul Dano
Dano in December 2007
Born	Paul Franklin Dano (1984-06-19) June 19, 1984 (age 28) New York, NY
Occupation	Actor/producer
Years active	2000–present
Website
http://www.paulfranklindano.com

Paul Franklin Dano (born June 19, 1984) is an American actor and producer. He has appeared in films such as L.I.E. (2001), Too Young to Be a Dad (2002), Little Miss Sunshine (2006), There Will Be Blood (2007), and Gigantic (2008).

Early life[link]

Dano was born in New York City, the son of Gladys (née Pipp) and Paul Dano.^[1][2] He spent the first few years of his childhood in New York City and initially attended the Browning School, while his father worked as a businessman in New York.^[3][4]

While he was still a child, Dano's family moved from New York to New Canaan, Connecticut, finally settling in Wilton, Connecticut,^[3] where Dano continued his education at Wilton High School, graduating in 2002 to further attend Eugene Lang College in New York, NY.^[3]

As a child he was involved in community theatre, and while performing in New Canaan his parents were encouraged to take him to New York City.^[3] At age 10, he was quickly scouted for roles in plays on Broadway, making his debut at age 12 in a revival of Inherit the Wind along with George C. Scott and Charles Durning.^[5] At age 17, Dano acted in his first major film role as Howie in L.I.E.^[6]

Career[link]

After appearing as Howie Blitzer in L.I.E., Dano appeared in Too Young to Be a Dad as Matt; as well as in Little Miss Sunshine as Dwayne.

He then played identical twin brothers Eli and Paul Sunday in Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, which earned him a BAFTA award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The film also brought him positive reviews, with Texas Monthly saying that his performance was "so electric that the movie sags whenever he's not around."^[7] and Peter Travers remarking "All praise to the baby-faced Dano...for bringing sly cunning and unexpected ferocity to Plainview's most formidable opponent."^[8]

Dano continues working in other, mostly independent, films. He is also active on stage, and has appeared in several Broadway productions including Inherit the Wind, A Month in the Country, A Thousand Clowns at the Roundabout Theatre, and in the Ethan Hawke directorial debut Things We Want during its 2007 Off-Broadway run.^[9]

As a side project, he provides vocals and lead guitar for the band Mook.^[10][11]

Rolling Stone magazine included Dano in its Hot List for 2007, calling his performance style "Daniel Day-Lewis + Billy Crudup × Johnny Depp."^[12]

Personal life[link]

As of April 2009, Dano is romantically linked to actress Zoe Kazan.^[13]

Awards and nominations[link]

Wins[link]

• Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards (2007, as Best Young Actor for Little Miss Sunshine)^[14]
• Chlotrudis Awards (2008, as Best Supporting Actor for There Will Be Blood)^[15]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Paul Dano

External links[link]

• Paul Dano at the Internet Movie Database
• Paul Dano at The Good Heart Press Day
• Myspace.com/mookband – Information about Paul's band Mook
• Paul Dano website – Latest news on Paul Dano

Julianne Moore
At the 66th Venice International Film Festival, September 2009
Born	Julie Anne Smith (1960-12-03) December 3, 1960 (age 51) Fayetteville, North Carolina, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1983–present
Spouse	John Gould Rubin (m. 1986–1995) «start: (1986)–end+1: (1996)»"Marriage: John Gould Rubin to Julianne Moore" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Julianne_Moore) Bart Freundlich (m. 2003) «start: (2003)»"Marriage: Bart Freundlich to Julianne Moore" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Julianne_Moore)
Children	2

Julianne Moore (born Julie Anne Smith on December 3, 1960) is a British-American actress and a children's book author. She has been nominated for four Oscars, six Golden Globes, three BAFTAs and nine Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Moore began her acting career in 1983 in minor roles, before joining the cast of the soap opera As the World Turns, for which she won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1988. She began to appear in supporting roles in films during the early 1990s, in films such as The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and The Fugitive. Her performance in Short Cuts (1993) won her and the rest of the cast a Golden Globe for their ensemble performance, and her performance in Boogie Nights (1997) brought her widespread attention and nominations for several major acting awards.

Her success continued with films such as The Big Lebowski (1998), The End of the Affair (1999) and Magnolia (1999). She received particular acclaim for her portrayal of a betrayed wife in Far from Heaven (2002), winning several critic awards as best actress of the year, in addition to several other nominations, including the Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award. The same year, she was also nominated for several awards as best supporting actress for her work in The Hours. In 2010, Moore starred in the comedy drama The Kids Are All Right, for which she received a Golden Globe and BAFTA nomination.

Early life[link]

Moore was born Julie Anne Smith at Fort Bragg, near Fayetteville, North Carolina.^[1] Her mother, the late Anne McNeil McLean (née Love), was a psychiatric social worker who emigrated from Greenock, Scotland, and her father, Peter Moore Smith, a New Jersey native, was a military lawyer, judge, helicopter pilot, and army colonel.^[2][3][4][5] She has a younger sister, Valerie, and a younger brother, novelist Peter Moore Smith III.^[6] Growing up as an "army brat", she moved 23 times and attended 9 different schools before she was 18.^[7][8] She lived in several places across the United States and Germany.^[1] Moore attended J.E.B. Stuart High School in Falls Church, Virginia and Frankfurt American High School in Frankfurt, Germany, graduating in 1979.^[1] She received her bachelor's degree at the College of Fine Arts at Boston University in Drama.^[9]

Career[link]

Acting[link]

Moore moved to New York City in 1983, working as a waitress and performing in bit parts before being cast in the dual roles of Frannie Hughes and Sabrina Hughes on the soap opera As the World Turns, for which she won a Daytime Emmy Award; she played the roles from 1985 to 1988.^[1] In 1987, she was part of the junior company in the New York premiere of Caryl Churchill's Serious Money at The Public Theater. Because of Screen Actors Guild rules, she had to change her name, since there were already actresses named "Julie Smith" and "Julianne Smith".^[1] She chose her father's middle name, "Moore", but because there was already another actress named "Julie Moore", she finally settled on "Julianne Moore."

Moore at the premiere of Savage Grace, April 2008.

Moore began starring in feature films in the early 1990s, mostly appearing in supporting roles in films like The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Benny & Joon, and The Fugitive. Her part in 1993's Short Cuts gained her critical acclaim and recognition, and she was cast in several high-profile Hollywood films, including 1995's romantic comedy Nine Months, and 1997's summer blockbuster The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Her first role as the central lead, Carol White, in the well-reviewed independent film Safe also attracted critical attention. The role was called the ancestor of one of Moore's best-praised roles, Cathy Whitaker, in another Haynes film, Far from Heaven.^[1][10] Critics noted the importance of this role in establishing her as an actress to take seriously.^[11] In addition, her performance on Vanya on 42nd Street, a filmed version of Anton Chekhov's play Uncle Vanya, earned her critical recognition, with film critic Kenneth Turan calling her work in the film "a revelation".^[12] For this role, Moore won Best Actress from the Boston Society of Film Critics.

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Moore appeared in a series of films that received Oscar recognition, including her roles in Boogie Nights (1997, Best Supporting Actress nomination), The End of the Affair (1999, Best Actress nomination), and her two 2002 films, The Hours (Best Supporting Actress nomination) and Far from Heaven (Best Actress nomination), for which she also won "Best Actress" from no less than 16 critics groups, more than any other actress that year^[13] (see below for a list), and from the Venice Film Festival.^[1] In the Los Angeles Times review of "The Hours," critic Manohla Dargis wrote: "The film's three leads are extraordinary, but what Moore does with her role is so beyond the parameters of what we call great acting that it nearly defies categorization." During this period, she also appeared in the commercial successes Hannibal (replacing Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling) and The Forgotten, in Paul Thomas Anderson's follow-up to Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and in the Coen brothers cult hit The Big Lebowski. Entertainment Weekly has chosen her one of The 25 Greatest Actresses of the '90s.^[14] In 2003, The Guardian called her "the most talented actress of her generation".^[15]

In November 2006, Moore made her Broadway debut in the world premiere of David Hare's new play The Vertical Hour, directed by Sam Mendes.^[16] 2006 also saw the releasing of three of her films: Freedomland, which opened in February to mixed reviews,^[17] followed by Trust the Man, directed by her husband Bart Freundlich, and the critically acclaimed science fiction feature Children of Men.^[18] The following year she appeared opposite Nicolas Cage and Jessica Biel in Next, a science fiction action film based on The Golden Man, a short story by Philip K. Dick; and the controversial film Savage Grace, the story of a high-society mother and son whose Oedipal relationship ends in tragedy. In 2008, she starred alongside Mark Ruffalo in Blindness, a thriller from director Fernando Meirelles. In her review of the film, Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com called Moore "an apparition of generosity and compassion who seems in danger of disappearing at any moment. Moore takes the movie's stiff, signpost dialogue and delivers it in a way that's consistently believable. [...] She's a miracle worker, and whatever Meirelles paid her, it isn't nearly enough",^[19] while The Austin Chronicle commented that Moore "masterfully characterizes the devoted wife’s metamorphosis into a heroicism both unwanted and unheralded. It’s a rattling, heartrending performance in, yes, a long, hard slough of a film – one that is well worth the journey, if not a repeat trip."^[20]

The next year, Moore appeared opposite Colin Firth in the well-received American drama A Single Man,^[21] for which she received her fifth Golden Globe nomination, with Peter Travers of Rolling Stone calling her performance "explosively good".^[22] When the cancellation of As the World Turns was announced in late 2009, Moore decided to honor the soap that brought her fame and temporarily returned for a few days as Frannie Hughes.^[23] During the 2009–2010 season of 30 Rock, she had a guest role as Nancy Donovan, a love interest for Alec Baldwin's character, Jack Donaghy.^[24]

In 2010, Moore starred in the erotic thriller Chloe, theatrically released by Sony Pictures Classics and had since became director Atom Egoyan's biggest moneymaker ever.^[25] In his review of the film, David Edelstein of the New York magazine called Moore's performance "extraordinarily raw and affecting."^[26] Moore next appeared in the comedy-drama The Kids Are All Right, co-starring Annette Bening and Mark Ruffalo; Moore was instrumental in getting the film made and in getting Bening involved.^[27] The film was both a critical and commercial success,^[28][29] garnering acting and production nominations from the Gotham Awards, the Independent Spirit Awards and the Academy Awards, as well as winning the Golden Globe Award for "Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy". Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times commented, "Moore and Bening are superb actors here, evoking a marriage of more than 20 years, and all of its shadings and secrets, idealism and compromise",^[30] and the Los Angeles Times review said, "Moore is fearless" and "plays every note perfectly."^[31] For this role, Moore received her sixth Golden Globe Award nomination and a BAFTA nomination.

In July 2011, Moore appeared in the comedy Crazy, Stupid, Love., co-starring Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling, which was successful commercially and received favorable reviews,^[32] with The Globe and Mail commenting, "some genuinely impressive acting breaks out. The accomplished Moore is an obvious candidate and, even in a confined role, she delivers – here a nervous look, there a tender gesture."^[33] In the HBO drama Game Change, Julianne Moore portrayed 2008 vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin. The made-for-television movie earned the cable channel its biggest audience for an in-house production in eight years.^[34] Moore received rave reviews for her "flawless performance"^[35], with the San Francisco Chronicle calling her portrayal of Palin "both complex and entirely credible. Yes, the hair, makeup and costumes contribute mightily to transforming Moore, but the nuance she brings to the performance is simply astounding."^[36] Altogether, she has five upcoming projects, amongst others the fantasy film The Seventh Son based on the book series The Wardstone Chronicles, co-starring Jeff Bridges, in which Moore will star as the "most dangerous 1700s witch" Mother Malkin.^[37]

Writing[link]

In October 2007, Moore made her literary debut with the publication of Freckleface Strawberry, a children's book illustrated by LeUyen Pham, based on her experiences as a child. In April 2009, Moore and Pham followed up with a second children's book titled Freckleface Strawberry and the Dodgeball Bully.^[38][39]

Personal life[link]

Moore met her first husband, John Gould Rubin, in 1984. They married in 1986, separated in 1994, and divorced in 1995.^{[citation needed]} In 1996, she began a relationship with director Bart Freundlich, whom she wed on August 23, 2003.^[40] The couple had two children prior to their marriage: a son, Caleb (b. December 4, 1997), and a daughter, Liv Helen (b. April 11, 2002). In an interview, Moore said she picked roles in movies that film in the summer so her family can accompany her: "My husband and I are very fortunate, because we have flexible jobs," she says. "If you talk to parents, that's what they're trying to do — have as much flexibility as possible."^[41] She lives with her family in the West Village neighborhood of Manhattan.^{[citation needed]} By way of her Scottish ancestry, Moore became a British citizen on July 8, 2011.^[42]

Activism[link]

Politics[link]

Moore is a pro-choice activist^[43][44] and, during the 2004 presidential election, donated $2,000 to John Kerry's presidential campaign.^[45]

Charity work[link]

Since 2002,^[46] she has been involved with the TS Alliance^[47] to raise awareness of tuberous sclerosis and is an Artist Ambassador for Save the Children's programs in the United States.^{[citation needed]} In 2012, Moore joined Moms Clean Air Force^[48], to help call on parents to join in the fight against toxic air pollution.

LGBT advocacy[link]

She actively supports same-sex marriage,^[49] and some of her films and roles deal with LGBT topics.

Filmography[link]