MOVIE/ MINISERIES & REALITY ISSUE

MoorEREARS HeR Head... and Comes Into thE AIRSPACE OFSarahPalinIn Preparing Her Turn as the 2008 Republican Vice Presidential Candidate in‘Game Change,’ the Oscar-nominated Actress Tapped a Vast Variety of SourcesBy Pete HammondShe’s considered one of the finest filmactresses of this or any generation. JulianneMoore has garnered four Oscar nominationsfor such disparate roles in Boogie Nights,The End of the Affair and in 2002 pulled off therare feat of two nominations in both leadingand supporting categories for Far From Heavenand The Hours. It seems only a matter oftime before she finally nabs the Oscar itselfbecause Moore is deeply admired by herfellow actors as someone not afraid to takerisks and go into dark places. This year shetook another risk, not only diving into aTV film, albeit HBO, but taking one of themost iconic, polarizing and most recognizablepolitical figures of our time, former vicepresidential candidate SarahPalin in the movie version ofthe best-selling book aboutthat 2008 campaign, GameChange. Due to her uncannyportrayal, Moore has catapultedinto the Emmy race.But it wouldn’t be her first.She started in TV soaps in themid-’80s and won a DaytimeEmmy for As the World Turnsin 1988. Make no mistake,this year Moore is definitelyready to move up to theprimetime contest. I recentlytalked to her about the challengeof taking on Palin.PERFECTING PALIN: This was extremely different (playinga real person who is still alive). I mean, the people thatI have played before have been deceased and not verywell known. They were not certainly well known publicfigures. This is somebody who is very much presentin our lives, even now, so we didn’t even have a graceperiod, even 10 years. There was no point at which shehas faded from public view … So the responsibility tobe accurate was really high. The first thing I did wascall a vocal coach and cleared my schedule of everythingelse I was doing because we only had two monthsto prep. I wanted to devote as much time as I could todoing the research. The great thing today is that everythingis available. Everything is on YouTube. Literallyeverything (Palin) ever did during the (2008) campaignhas been documented. Because we were workingspecifically on that time period – those months leadingup to the election, between her nomination and theconcession speech – that was what I focused on. So Ilooked at all of her appearances, all of the conventionspeeches, all of the press appearances, all ofthe debates and listened to it over and over.Put it on my iPod, worked with my vocalcoach and just did it. My kids made fun ofme: I had nothing else on my iPod except forSarah Palin [laughs]. Literally, I took all themusic off so I would never ever be tempted tolisten to anything else.SYMPATHY FOR THE HOCKEY MOM: She was undera tremendous amount of pressure and in acompletely untenable situation. First of all,she wasn’t vetted, so they didn’t have all theinformation they needed to have about her.And then when they discovered that she wasnot as prepared as they would have liked herto be, they just put her through the ringer interms of preparation. And, honestly, all theresearch, talks with (screenwriter) DannyStrong, absolutely everybody talks abouthow hard she worked. The woman neverstopped working, trying to memorize andlearn things. You know, she simply didn’thave the time or the experience really. I was talking toJay Roach about it from an acting standpoint, and itwould be as if you have five directors standing there alltelling you different things to do. That was the sort ofsituation she was in, where everybody had an opinionabout what she should say or do or how to behave …It certainly makes you sort of disenchanted about thepolitical system, and I think that would be Jay’s intentionwith the movie. For people to take a good long lookat how we elect our leaders and why we have this crazycircus-like atmosphere that surrounds it, where howsomeone looks, how they appear seems to matter morethan their actual ability or content, so it’s an interestingthing to explore in a film.PLAYING OPPOSITE SENATOR O’BIDEN: There would betimes when I would be shooting something (and wasspliced into the actual news footage), for example theBiden debate. I said, “I don’t want to shoot this all atonce. Do you mind if I just take it piece by piece?”and Jay was like, “Absolutely not, it’s fine.” So beforewe shot, I would look at the footage, and we wouldmake sure that I was very accurate before I was readyto move on to the next piece. You’re not dealing withjust vocal inflections (of Palin), but with (her) physicality.You know, the way she tilts her head. And you knowwe all remember it. This was historic stuff. We all haveour pretty recent memories of this [laughs].BIGGEST “GOTCHA” CHALLENGE: Probably (playing) hervoice, especially because she has been so widely imitatedand so beautifully performed by somebody else.Tina Fey’s characterization of her is something thatbecame incredibly memorable. We can all relate to notonly Sarah Palin and her idiosyncrasies, but also toTina and the satire that she performed on SaturdayNight Live. I needed to be especially careful, particularlyvocally, because that was something that was sovery familiar to all of us … Katie Couric (also) broughtthe very fundamental issues about Sarah Palin’s candidacyto the forefront of the mind of the Americanpeople. Those two were responsible for illuminatingthe problem.20EMMY AWARDS PRINT EDITIONS 2012