What playing an Alzheimer’s patient taught Julianne Moore about life

JULIANNE Moore just won a Golden Globe for her depiction of a woman struggling with early onset Alzheimer’s, but the actor walked away with more than just critical accolades.

BEVERLY HILLS, CA - JANUARY 11: Actress Julianne Moore, winner of Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama for 'Still Alice,' leaves the press room during the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, California. Kevin Winter/Getty Images/AFP == FOR NEWSPAPERS, INTERNET, TELCOS & TELEVISION USE ONLY ==

JULIANNE Moore just won herself a Golden Globe for her depiction of a woman struggling with early onset Alzheimer’s in “Still Alice,” but the actor walked away with more than just critical accolades.

In an interview on HuffPost Live with co-star Kristen Stewart, Moore spoke about how playing the part of Alice led her to realise the importance of living in the moment, rather than dwelling on the past or future.

Julianne Moore in a scene from Still Alice.

“Memory is based on feelings and experience, and I think for Alice, what she realises is that, as it goes, the only substitute for those feelings is being as present as you can in the moment that you have,” she explained.

“And I think that’s kind of the lesson of Still Alice.”

Another lesson she was keen to emphasise is that the main message of Still Alice is that the person struggling with the Alzheimer’s “is still there. And that’s what’s most important. There’s this notion that somehow a personality or a person is obliterated by this disease, but the person is there … that’s why it’s called Still Alice.”

Julianne Moore with her ‘Best Actress in a Motion Picture — Drama’ award.

Instead of “either thinking about what’s happened or what’s going to happen,” Moore also stressed that the value of just embracing the present.

“That’s what the movie is about — it’s really about, how do you fully occupy that moment that you’re in,” she concluded.

Watch more from Julianne Moore’s joint interview with Kristen Stewart on HuffPost Live here.

This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared in The Huffington Post.