Moore, 59, stars as Jules, a lesbian who, along with her partner Nic (Annette Bening) have raised two kids (Josh Hutcherson, Mia Wasikowska) together from a sperm donor (Mark Ruffalo), as their lives are complicated when the donor comes into their lives.
While the film was praised by the LGBTQ community, there was backlash as well for two straight actresses playing queer roles, with Moore telling Variety that she thinks about it a lot.
'I’ve thought about that a lot. Here we were, in this movie about a queer family, and all of the principal actors were straight. I look back and go, “Ouch. Wow,"' she began.
'I don’t know that we would do that today, I don’t know that we would be comfortable. We need to give real representation to people, but I’m grateful for all of the experiences that I’ve had as an actor because my job is to communicate a universality of experience to the world,' she added.
'The idea that, rather than othering people, we’re saying we’re all the same. Our humanity is shared,' Moore continued.
The film was directed by Lisa Cholodenko, a member of the LGBTQ community, who co-wrote the script with Stuart Blumberg, with Cholodenko, who said it was a 'super interesting argument' about casting straight actors in LGBTQ roles.
'I tend to err on the side of, "It’s make believe," and it’s of the discretion of the director who’s the most compelling for that job. So, I don’t think it’s mutually exclusive. While I want to promote gay people representing gay people, trans people, all the rest, queer people — it’s also a commercial prospect. It’s all those things,' Cholodenko said.
She added that when she cast Moore and Bening, 'I could feel their gayness. It didn’t feel phony to me. I didn’t feel like I was putting somebody in an outfit and asking them to parade as something that was false.'
She added there was a 'conversation about going out to Jodie Foster,' who said via email she didn't remember getting an offer and said she was busy doing reshoots on her directorial effort The Beaver, which was released in 2011.
Cholodenko had started writing The Kids Are All Right in 2004, coming off her critically-acclaimed 2003 film Laurel Canyon, when she ran into Stuart Blumberg (Thanks For Sharing) at Cafe 101 in Hollywood.
'Lisa told me that she and her then-partner were trying to have a kid with a sperm donor, and she was thinking that would be a cool idea for a movie,' Blumberg said.
'I said, "Wow, that’s weird. In college I was a sperm donor, and I always wondered if I have kids and what would happen if they tried to find me." Then the lightbulb just went off,' he added.
The film was a modest hit at the box office, earning $34.7 million from a $4 million budget, earning rave reviews and racking up awards and nominations.
The Kids Are All Right was nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture, with both Bening and Ruffalo getting nominated along with Cholodenko and Blumberg for their original screenplay.
Article: www.dailymail.com 31st July 2020