Julianne Moore: Alzheimer's Makes Us Question 'Our Essential Selves'
In the new movie Still Alice, Julianne Moore plays Alice Howland, a 50-year-old linguistics professor at Columbia with a razor-sharp intellect. She's at the prime of her career, but gradually she starts to forget things. She loses her way, she gets fuzzy — and she is soon diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. The movie charts her rapid decline and her struggle to hold on to her sense of self.
"She is someone who has always defined herself by her intellect, and now that that's something she can't depend on, she's finding that she doesn't really know who she is," Moore tells NPR's Melissa Block.
Interview Highlights
On speaking with people who had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's
I spoke to so many people. I didn't have any familiarity with Alzheimer's. I think I'm one of the few people who hasn't had a family member affected by it. When I spoke to the filmmakers, I said I didn't want to represent anything on screen that I hadn't witnessed myself or [that hadn't] been described to me. So my research process was pretty lengthy. I actually had about four months. And the women I spoke to were so incredibly generous with their time and their thoughts and their experiences, and it was a pretty profound experience.
On what she learned from her research
One of the things that I sort of misunderstood about Alzheimer's is that somehow it ... just affected memory, just simple memory. What I didn't really understand [is] that it's also kind of a neuro-spatial disease — that you're going to have a different interpretation of how things are happening to you.
One woman I spoke to ... was a high school Spanish teacher and she said she didn't know what was happening to her but one of her students noticed that she was writing backwards on the blackboard. Another woman told me that she was making very simple mistakes at work. ... She was an OR nurse in a neurosurgery ward, and she couldn't learn a very simple computer program and didn't know what was wrong. So it was interesting to me that for some of these women, so many things happened at work — that was where they noticed the deficits first. And then once there had been some kind of ramification in their professional life, they realized that things had been happening in their personal life as well.
On a scene in the film in which Alice gives a speech about Alzheimer's
I am taking a yellow highlighter as I read so I can follow along so I'll know what I've read and what I have to read. And this is something that we saw in speeches that people give at these Alzheimer's conventions.
There's a joke in that speech, too, where she drops her papers, and she says: "I think I'm going to try to forget what just happened." And that was the other thing — it was remarkable that I found with the women that I spoke to. Everyone had such a great sense of humor. One woman told me — this made me laugh so hard — that after she was diagnosed, all of her children gave her puzzles for Christmas.
On how people live — and continue living — with the disease
It's not like you have a disease and you disappear, you go away, and that's it. There's so many people who are living with this disease, you know, it's a progressive disease. So it's about how do you stay present? How do you stay with the people that you love? How do you keep the life going that you value?
On meeting with older people who had been living with Alzheimer's for a long time
Even when I went to a long-term-care facility, I met several people who were patients. I felt that I got a very strong sense of who they were. Then I spoke to the caregivers there and family members. There was one woman who told me to get away from the draft, I was going to get sick. And then her daughter came in. ... I said, "Is that your mother?" And she goes, "Oh yeah." ... I said, "Your mother told me I was going to get sick if I stayed in the draft." And she goes, "Yup, that's her, she's always telling people what to do. That's my mother." ...
I found that people did retain a tremendous sense of self. So I think the questions that it raises [include] ... Who are our essential selves? Who are we, and why do we place value on one stage of life or one stage of cognitive ability and not another?
On how this movie affected her thinking about aging
It's not just about aging, it's about mortality. And aging is about mortality, too. ... I think in our culture, and lots of cultures, we have this kind of, "You are as old as you think you are! Forever young! You can do whatever! Fifty is the new 30!" This idea that somehow you're forever young and this refusal to look at our life cycle.
The thing that happens to Alice in this movie is that she's kind of in the prime of her life, and a great place in her life, and she's faced with the idea of her own mortality. She does know that it's going to be shorter than her expectation was, or it just forces her to acknowledge an end, which is very difficult for any of us to do.
I think the interesting thing about looking at the end of your life or knowing it's an end of your life is that you start to value what you have even more. You know, you value the present. I think you're never, never more in love with life than you are in the presence of death or your own mortality. ... You think about how much you love to live, how much you love the people you love. ... What do you value? Who do you value? What do you want to do? In a sense, it makes everything kind of crisper, and sharper and more vital.
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Transcript
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
Julianne Moore has just been nominated for an Oscar, and she already won a Golden Globe award for her betrayal of a woman diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease. In the movie "Still Alice," Moore plays Alice Howland, a 50-year-old linguistics professor at Columbia with a razor-sharp intellect.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "STILL ALICE")
JULIANNE MOORE: (As Alice Howland) Today, I'd like to focus on some recent studies from my lab on the acquisition of past tense irregular verb forms.
BLOCK: In this scene, she is giving a lecture.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "STILL ALICE")
MOORE: (As Alice Howland) You may say that this falls into the great academic tradition of knowing more and more about less and less until we know everything about nothing.
(LAUGHTER)
MOORE: (As Alice Howland) But I hope to convince you that by observing these baby steps into the - into - I knew I shouldn't had that champagne.
(LAUGHTER)
MOORE: (As Alice Howland) Into the word-stock of a given language.
BLOCK: Alice laughs it off, but she realizes her memory lapse fits a pattern. She's starting to forget things, loses her way, gets fuzzy. The movie charts her rapid decline with Alzheimer's and her struggle to hold onto her sense of self. I talked with Julianne Moore about this character, a woman in her prime whose career depends on her brain.
MOORE: Yeah, yeah, she's someone who's really - who's always defined herself by her intellect. And now that that's something that she can't depend on, she's finding that she doesn't really know who she is, or she doesn't feel that she knows who she is.
BLOCK: When you were thinking about how to betray the progression of this disease, I understand you talked with women who have been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's.
MOORE: Yeah, I spoke to so many people. I had - I didn't have any familiarity with Alzheimer's. I'm - I think I'm one of the few people who hasn't had a family member affected by it. And I - when I spoke to filmmakers I said that I didn't want to represent anything on screen that I hadn't witnessed myself or had been described to me. So my research process was pretty lengthy. I actually had about four months and the women I spoke to were so incredibly generous with their time and their thoughts and their experiences. And it was a pretty profound experience, actually, talking to them.
BLOCK: Were there specific things they told you, keys to what it's like to have Alzheimer's disease that filtered into your performance in really specific ways?
MOORE: Yeah, so, I mean, so many specific things. Well, I mean, one of the things that I sort of misunderstood about Alzheimer's is that somehow it was - just affected memory, just simple memory. And what I didn't really understand that it's also kind of a neuro spatial disease; that you're going to have a different interpretation of how things are happening to you. One woman I spoke to said she was a high school Spanish teacher and she said she didn't know what was happening to her, but one of her students noticed that she was writing backward on the board - on the blackboard.
Another woman told me that she was making very simple mistakes at work and she couldn't learn a very simple computer program and didn't know what was wrong. So it was interesting to me that for some of these women so many things happened at work. That was where they noticed the deficits first. And then once there had been some kind of ramification in their professional life, they realized that things had been happening in their personal life as well.
BLOCK: Let's listen to another scene from the movie. This is after Alice has lost her teaching job at Columbia. And she goes before an Alzheimer's conference and delivers a speech about her experience with the disease, a long speech. Here's part of it.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "STILL ALICE")
MOORE: (As Alice Howland) Who can take us seriously when we are so far from who we once were? Our strange behavior and fumbled sentences change others' perceptions of us and our perception of ourselves. We become ridiculous, incapable, comic, but this is not who we are. This is our disease.
BLOCK: And, Julianne Moore, why don't you describe what you're doing as you are reading those words?
MOORE: I am - I'm taking a yellow highlighter as I read so I can follow along. So I'll know what I've read and what I have to read. And this is something that we saw in speeches that people give at these Alzheimer's conventions.
BLOCK: You know, I found myself, as I watched this movie and afterward, becoming hyperaware of my own memory and any time that I forgot words...
MOORE: Oh, yeah (laughter).
BLOCK: Or lost my keys or didn't know where my phone was. Is it the same for you?
MOORE: Sure.
BLOCK: I mean, has this sort of changed how you see your own memory?
MOORE: One of the things that I did very early on, actually, I went to Mount Sinai and I met with Dr. Mary Sano, who is one of the leading researchers and clinicians in Alzheimer's disease and spoke to some of her colleagues there. And they said so often people come in and say, you know, I want to be tested. I think I have Alzheimer's and they test them and they'll find that it's normal. They're - people are stressed. They haven't been sleeping enough. They're overworked. But when you take the - I took the cognitive test. The neuropsychiatrist gave me the cognitive tests. And I didn't hear anything and for - a couple weeks later I'm like, you know what? I'm just going to email her again to say thank you, really (laughter) the guise of finding out whether, you know, she'd seen anything. And when she answered me she said I just wanted tell you your results were normal, and I was like, good (laughter).
BLOCK: Yeah, yeah.
MOORE: Yeah.
BLOCK: Did working on this movie and thinking about memory and memory loss, did it make you any more or less afraid about aging?
MOORE: I think that what it does make you think about - as it's not just about aging. It's about mortality - I mean, it's about mortality and aging's about mortality, too. And it's something that, you know, I think in our culture, in lots of cultures, we have this kind of, you know, you are as old as you think you are, forever young, you can do whatever, you know, 50 is the new what, you know, 30. This idea that somehow you're forever young or - and this refusal to look at the, you know, the life - our life cycle.
And the thing that happens to Alice in this movie is that she's kind of in the prime of her life, in a great place in her life, and she's faced with the idea of her own mortality. She does know that it's going to be shorter than her expectation was. Or it just forces her to acknowledge an end, which is very difficult for any of us to do. And I think the interesting thing about looking at the end of your life or knowing it's an end of your life is that you start to value what you have even more. You know, you value the present. I think you're never, never more in love with life than you are in the presence of death or your own mortality. So it kind of makes you think about that, you know? It thinks - you think about how much you love to live, how much you love the people you love. What do you value? Who do you value? What do you want to do? In a sense, it makes everything kind of crisper and sharper and more vital.
BLOCK: Well, Julianne Moore, it's been a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much.
MOORE: It's been so nice to talk to you, Melissa. Thank you for having me.
BLOCK: Julianne Moore stars in the new movie "Still Alice." Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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