There`s another woman in ”The Hand That Rocks the Cradle”-not Rebecca De Mornay`s evil nanny, and not Annabella Sciorra`s mom as innocent victim. It`s Julianne Moore`s Marlene, the smart, acerbic real-estate broker and family friend who cautions Sciorra`s Claire: ”Never let an attractive woman occupy a power position in your home.”
Of course, Claire doesn`t listen.
Moore has been winning raves for her performance. It`s a plum role (it was director Curtis Hanson`s favorite in the film), and Moore took it on with relish.
”I love that part,” she says of her chain-smoking, wise-cracking character. ”She`s like a classic movie character, one that you used to see a lot in old movies: the girlfriend who was smart and funny. An Eve Arden part. And you don`t see that anymore.
”What really attracted me was her confidence and her humor. . . . Generally in movies now, women are victims, so it was nice to play somebody smart, who knew what was going on.”
Even if she does walk into that greenhouse and, well . . .
”Hand,” made for a mere $11.7 million, has turned into a megahit for Disney`s Hollywood Pictures. Moore never saw it coming.
”You had all the big, big movies that came out at Christmas-all these huge films with big stars. And you figure you`re going to be in a movie that`s released in January. You just assume that people are tired of going to the movies.”
Moore, married to actor John Gould Rubin, is a Boston University graduate and a veteran of the New York stage (she`s been playing Yalenka in Andre Gregory`s work-in-progess production of ”Uncle Vanya”) and of three years on the CBS soap opera ”As the World Turns.”
She has made two films besides ”Hand”: ”Tales From the Darkside: The Movie” and HBO`s ”Cast a Deadly Spell” (she was a shifty 1940s chanteuse opposite Fred Ward). A fourth, ”The Gun in Betty Lou`s Handbag,” is under way in Oxford, Miss. The film is directed by Alan Moyle (”Pump Up the Volume”) and also stars Penelope Ann Miller, Alfre Woodard and Eric Thal.
Moore says that because she has been away from New York, she doesn`t have a sense of whether her performance in ”Hand” has affected her career.
”I feel very removed from it, because I`m involved in this other project. Which is good, actually,” she says with a laugh. ”It`s nice. … Kind of like pulling a blanket over your head.”