Julianne Moore Shares a Cautionary Tale About Plucking Your Eyebrows

Julianne Moore’s is one of Hollywood’s most iconic redheads, and yet, for much of her life, the 61-year-old Academy Award winner resisted accepting that she was born with freckles and a fiery crown. “When I was growing up in the U.S., it felt as if no one had freckles. I just wanted to look like every other tanned American kid,” she said in a new interview with the Sunday Times. “I hated being the one that couldn’t go to the beach or who had to wear long sleeves. I think that stayed with me a bit.”

It’s not as if she could change that aspect of her appearance. And while she could have dyed her hair, she mostly left it alone. Her eyebrows, on the other hand, were another matter; Moore says that she “destroyed” them in an effort to fit in. “As a teenager and as a young adult I kept plucking them, bleaching them, doing all sorts of things to them, so they are really completely gone,” she said. The actor has drawn hers on for years now, and making them look natural hasn’t been easy. “Most brands want to make your eyebrows red,” she explained. “There actually aren’t many redheads who have red eyebrows. Mine are light brown-blonde.”

Moore has done her best to keep her 20-year-old daughter from repeating her mistakes. “Liv has red hair and the most gorgeous dark eyebrows and I tell her, “Please don’t touch them. I really mean it. And don’t let anybody else touch them, either,” she said.

When it comes to herself, though, Moore is no longer hung up on her physical appearance. “I think it’s because you have other things that you are interested in, such as family, relationships, work or your community. Being myopic about the way you look recedes,” she said. “I don’t think it goes away entirely, I don’t think there is a person in the world who couldn’t care less; everybody cares somewhat. But the degree to which you are interested in that, and the fruitlessness of that, becomes apparent as you get older.”