Julianne: I’ve never had to hide my sexuality

Julianne Moore has never had to hide her sexuality.

The 54-year-old actress stars alongside Ellen Page in upcoming movie Freeheld. Ellen hit headlines when she came out as gay in February 2014, and Julianne admits she had no idea the struggles a closeted person goes through before going public with their true identity.

“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,” Julianne told Out magazine. “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’s coming out speech came as part of the Human Rights Campaign's Time to Thrive conference.

She stars as homosexual character Stacie in Freeheld, and says it was an enlightening experience.

“For me, lots of stuff surfaced playing Stacie,” Ellen told the publication. “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.”