Julianne Moore opens up on love for Greenock and how she ‘fits right in’

Hollywood star Julianne Moore appeared on Lauren Lavern’s 6 Music Show on Friday morning, opening up on her Scottish roots and her unexpected love for Greenock.

The actress, 63, is currently promoting the new Jacobean period drama Mary & George – a seven-part psychosexual Sky show inspired by the true story of Mary Villiers and her son George, who had a love affair with King James VI of Scotland.

Chatting to Julianne, Lauren probed whether the Hunger Games star feels the show has resonance with her, thanks to her own tartan roots, as talk turned to her Scots mum – a psychologist and social worker from Inverclyde.

The award-winning actress said: “My mother was from Greenock.

“[She] felt very thoroughly Scottish, she immigrated to the United States when she was a kid and I don’t know that she thought she would stay.

“She grew up and met my father and they married very young, but she didn’t get her citizenship until she was probably 27.

“At that time you had to renounce your British citizenship, which was really hard for her, so when it became available for me to have both, I applied so I have my UK passport, which is nice.”

Commenting on her heritage and how her character made her feel closer to her heritage, Julianne said: “I love working here, it was really a thrill to be able to tackle something like this, it was tremendously unusual for me and I loved it.

“I have [returned to Greenock] – not in a very long time – but what a fun place.

“I love Scotland and obviously from what I look like, I fit right in.”

In 2013, Julianne penned a children’s book ‘My Mom Is a Foreigner, But Not to Me’, which pays homage to mothers from different countries.

Sharing her inspiration for the book, she said: “Especially in the United States, so many of us are from different places and it’s really a book about what it meant to be a first-generation American, where people kind of feel your mother’s unusual in some way, when really it’s because she’s from anther country.”

Starring as Mary in the upcoming historical drama, Julianne previously described her character as an outrageous, direct and unusual women.

She said:”Mary Villiers was a woman from a minor aristocratic family, who managed to educate her son and he eventually became the consort of King James I.”

Adding that she was the only American in a full English cast, the star confessed she knew little about the Jacobean era – yet was relieved to discover neither did her co-stars.

She went on: “What was interesting [about that period] was the jostling for power, and the relative instability and this idea that people only felt safe if they were very close to the King because that was the centre of all power.”

Julianne also revealed she’s currently working on her next project in Madrid, alongside acclaimed director Pedro Almodovar, with another well-kent Scot.

She went on: “It’s me and the fabulous Tilda Swinton and we just start shooting next week.”

Mary & George is available to watch on Sky and NOW.

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