Julianne Moore knows how to play house

NEW YORK -- When Julianne Moore had back-to-back showcase roles as '50s housewives in 2002, it seemed like a bad career move, like she was inviting typecasting and cutting herself off from the big-budget love story world after years of wonderful independent films. Then she got Oscar nominations for both films -- a supporting nod for the suicidal mother in ''The Hours" and a best actress one for the perfect suburbanite unmoored by her husband's homosexuality in ''Far From Heaven" -- and suddenly her choices seemed a stroke of genius.

She has played contemporary roles in two major releases since then -- in the thriller ''The Forgotten" and the romantic comedy ''Laws of Attraction" -- but what might take her back to the Academy Awards is another '50s housewife. In ''The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio," which opens Friday, her character, Evelyn Ryan, is a defiant optimist who faces raising 10 children in poverty without much help from an alcoholic husband and ends up supporting them by winning a steady stream of jingle contests. The story is spry and jubilant despite its undercurrent of desperation, and Moore shows a fiery determination behind her long-suffering, pasted-on smile.

At this point, the 45-year-old actress is not worried at all about typecasting.

''What's different about this role is that it's based on a true story," she says, in a hotel suite in New York, where she's dressed casually in gray jeans and a gauzy green shirt over a white camisole. ''The responsibility is entirely different. It's about how you bring the character to life in your own way while remaining faithful to the spirit of who she was."

The director of the film, Jane Anderson (''Normal"), didn't worry at all about putting the redhead into any kind of iconic role. ''I don't consider it repetition at all. There are dozens of stories that are completely different from each other that can be told," she says.

Moore's husband, the director Bart Freundlich, speaking earlier during an interview at the Toronto Film Festival, thinks these roles are just in the cards because his wife is an expert at communicating what's below the surface. ''There's not a lot of opportunity for women of that generation in these films to express themselves verbally or make any big movements," said Freundlich. ''They don't slap anyone or yell; they are always perfect. But Juli's able to communicate the brokenness -- the complexity -- behind that."

Anderson describes a scene in the film where Moore was able to do just that, with an added degree of dignity that amazed her. After Evelyn wins a shopping spree at a supermarket, she's sitting at her kitchen table with all the kids, trying all sorts of foreign delicacies she picked, such as caviar and artichoke hearts. Her husband, played by Woody Harrelson, is expressing his wounded pride at having his wife provide all of their luxuries; he grouses and starts to get violent. The scene was supposed to end after he throws half the contents of the freezer into the backyard, but Anderson kept the cameras rolling, and Moore started improvising.

''You can see her on-screen consciously making the decision not to go to the dark place," says Anderson. ''She went back to the table and said to the kids, 'What should we try next?' Then she had the foresight to invite her husband back to sit with them, and that gave the scene such resonance."

Moore, who early in her career starred in movies as diverse as Todd Haynes's ''Safe" and Louis Malle's ''Vanya on 42nd Street," chalks this up to finding her character's essence. ''Evelyn was an extraordinary individual," she says. ''She had an indomitable spirit, an intense inherent optimism, plus an ability to live in the present and to have a sense of humor." Moore says that watching her mother go through some of these emotions as a military wife, always following her husband through various posts, helped as well.

''My mother is 65 and she felt that," Moore says. ''She was married at 20, and only had a year of nursing school. It was just when things were changing, so I was quite aware as a teenager that there were things I took for granted that my mother didn't have -- that we had choices, that we could have an education, could have a family and a career."

The only thing her mother asked of her was that she didn't go to college in New York -- too scary -- which is how Moore ended up at Boston University in the drama program. Her college experience didn't presage the kind of A-list star she would become.

''I lived all over the place," she says. ''I moved every year I was there. I worked on top of the Howard Johnson's in Kenmore Square, where the Citgo sign is. I worked at Great Gatsby's, and the Boston Tea Party Ship & Museum as a cashier."

Now she's found her way to New York despite her mother's admonition, setting up house in Greenwich Village with Freundlich and their two kids, Cal, 7, and Liv, 3. ''My mom comes to visit now and she still thinks the city is too busy, but maybe not as scary," Moore says.

Moore is so comfortable there that she bases career choices on whether or not she has to stray far from home. She and Freundlich try to time their projects so that only one of them is working at a time, and when they can't work that out, they try to work together.

Moore is the star of Freundlich's latest film, ''Trust the Man," which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September and will be released next year. She plays an actress and mother of two young kids the same age as hers (Liv actually makes a cameo in a final scene). The film costars many close family friends, such as Freundlich's schoolmate Billy Crudup, his best West Coast friend David Duchovny, and their longtime friend James LeGros.

LeGros, an ordained minister through the Internet, actually performed Moore and Freundlich's wedding ceremony two years ago. The couple had been together since meeting on the set of Freundlich's directorial debut, ''The Myth of Fingerprints" in 1996, but hadn't made it official. And that little tidbit ends up in the movie.

''I've done four movies with Bart, and five with Julianne; you get to know people over the years," says LeGros, speaking in Toronto.

''You don't have a lot of control in this business, and you don't know what's going to happen, so it's nice to think you have relationships out there like that," says Moore.

Moore has tried her hand at taking the reins, executive-producing ''Marie and Bruce," an independent film based on a play by Wallace Shawn (with whom she starred in ''Vanya") that premiered at Sundance last year. But that wasn't a great experience, which she blames mostly on not having enough time to devote to the project. ''I have no control [of the film] now," she says with exasperation. ''I learned my lesson: If you're going to do it, do it entirely."

On that note, she isn't much interested in stepping behind the camera. ''My husband is a director, so I see what it takes," she says. ''And what it takes is a lot of time."

For now, she's got her hands full, like every other working mom out there. ''It's hard. It's what everyone is doing," she says, and as she finishes her sentence, her cellphone rings, and it's Freundlich, most likely wanting to know when Moore will be home.

''You do the best you can," she adds, silencing the phone ringer. ''The thing that's nicest for us is that we have some flexibility. That's the hardest, hardest thing. I see it at the nursery school. Every mother I know talks about that."

Beth Pinsker can be reached at bpinsker@nyc.rr.com.