Oscar-winning actress Julianne Moore says she doesn't want to 'engage' in films about 'explosions and guns' due to current global conflicts.

Moore, 65, was speaking at the Cannes Film Festival where she was due to be honoured with the Women In Motion award by the Kering fashion group tonight.

She said: 'I'm less and less interested in tragedy I would say.

'I think that particularly now at a time when things are really rough globally it's very difficult for me to invest in a story that I think is pretend; where I feel like the depth of the emotion, the measure of it, doesn't measure up to what's happening in the world.  I don't feel like I want to engage in it.'

She went on: 'I don't like easy stakes. I don't like someone being murdered, I don't like explosions and guns, I don't like histrionics, I don't like things that raise the stakes without real feeling underneath. 

'That really bothers me because that's just noise. I don't know how to play it, and I don't want to watch it.'

Her next film is in a musical comedy by Jesse Eisenberg about a shy woman who gets involved in community theatre. 

She also has what she says is a 'small part' in the forthcoming film by former fashion designer Tom Ford, Cry to Heaven, which also features the singer Adele. 'Small part, lots of dresses,' she said.

Moore, whose films include Boogie Nights, Still Alice and The Hours, added that Meryl Streep had set the 'golden standard' for women in film. 

'She was the first woman I saw who appeared to be touchable and untouchable at the same time. There's something human and modern about her. I feel like she lit a fire in terms of how we could be and what we could do.'

She bemoaned the lack of female representation – there are only five female directors at Cannes this year, two less than in 2025. The number of women in lead roles has fallen to 37 per cent in the highest grossing films of 2025, down from 47 per cent in 2024.

She said: 'It's not endemic just to the film industry, it's global. I mean, there's not representation in C-suites, there's not representation in media, there's not representation in higher education. So there are lots of places where we don't have the representation we deserve. 

'I feel like it's a bigger problem. And how do you change that? I don't know. It's like, how does a mouse get through a wall? One bite at a time. 

'You do it slowly, steadily, mindfully, making choices, speaking up, using your privilege, hiring more, talking about alliances, changing things for us on set. I feel like women are each other's greatest allies, and that's the secret sauce.'