Julianne Moore doesn't want to be "defined" by her age

She told The Observer magazine: "No one wants to be defined by how old they are. When you are 30, you don't want to be told, 'You're 30, you should start worrying,' and when you're 60, you don't want people telling you, 'Don't you think we should be wrapping this up now?' It feels like a very tight way to define someone when, in fact, everybody is just having experiences of... being alive."

The 'Boogie Nights' star - who was initially married to John Gould Rubin from 1986 until 1995 but is now married to Bart Freundlich and has Caleb , 26, as well as 22-year-old Liv with him - believes that questions about age are technically about business but that "mortality" is the bigger issue at play.

She said: "We all have a life cycle. Sometimes the age questions are really about business, you know, but then the deeper question,, and here we're getting back to the dark part of this interview... the deeper question is about mortality.

"We all want that, don't we! The thing about identity, though, is that it's always shifting."

Meanwhile, the 'Still Alice' actress recently explained that she now finds herself in a "different situation" with her work now because she is no longer restricted by being around for her children as much.

She said: "When my kids were little or in high school, I just wouldn't take the part. Everything I did had to be in New York, or I could go away in little bits or in the summertime."

"I really, really valued having a family. I wanted my kids to feel rooted somewhere. I wanted to have the experience of being in a family, and that meant making certain choices about work that would allow me to do that. It's a very different situation when you can just up and go.

"But it is still a challenge. You're like, 'Wait, wait, where's my life?' "