Julianne Moore: I Wasn't Aware of How Painful It Is to Be Closeted

Julianne Moore and Ellen Page are breathtaking on the cover of Out magazine’s October 2015 issue.

Here’s what the 54-year-old actress and 28-year-old actress, who star in Freeheld together, had to share with the mag:

Julianne, on working with Ellen on Freeheld so recently after she came out: “Ellen had so recently come out, and this is going to sound silly, and hopefully not hurtful, but I don’t think I was aware of how painful it is to be closeted. I have the advantage of being a person who’s never had to hide my sexuality, so I asked her a lot of questions�”frank questions�”about what that feels like. She said she felt discomfort simply wearing all these dresses, and it was all very eye-opening for me. She was so unprotective [of herself] – I was very touched by that. It definitely made me more sensitive to the nuances of our movie.”

Ellen, on playing a homosexual character in Freeheld: “For me, lots of stuff surfaced [playing Stacie]. Recreating a sort of closeted relationship in a film caused some stuff to surface, for sure. And then there’s [the matter] of speaking up or potentially owning an identity that I think does require a responsibility of trying to help move things forward. For Stacie, it was more complicated, because her being fully involved in that activism meant accepting that the love of her life was going to die. But when she finally managed, in some way, to accept that idea, I think she could fully give herself to the activist part of it all.”

Julianne, on her hopes for the film: “I would really like it to be a big, mainstream hit, because I feel like it’s an important time in our culture. In the entertainment business, some people say we can effect change. I don’t know that we can effect change, but I do know that we reflect it. When there’s a Supreme Court judgment, generally, it’s because popular opinion has already changed. A majority of people in this country were in favor of marriage equality, and the Supreme Court made that ruling. And look! Suddenly, here is this movie that sort of reflects that back. So we’re ready as a culture to say, ‘Here. Look. Look how far we’ve come, and look what we’ve done.’”

For more from Julianne and Ellen, visit Out.com.