Tales from the Darkside: Julianne Moore discussed movie on The Tonight Show

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Julianne Moore is one of the most highly respected actresses in Hollywood these days, a four time Oscar nominee who took home the gold for her role in the 2014 film Still Alice. But back in 1990, she was just getting started. That's when she landed her first role in a big screen feature, the anthology Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (watch it HERE). Unexpectedly, that movie actually came up during Moore's recent appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, where she was doing press for the limited series adaptation of the Stephen King novel Lisey's Story (pick up a copy HERE), which is coming to Apple TV+ on June 4th.

After Fallon showed a picture of her living dead character from the final moments of the Darkside segment she's in, Moore revealed, 

I really remember this because this is the part of the movie I didn't think that I was in. It was my first movie, this horror movie. We were shooting in Yonkers and I was so excited to get this horror movie, and I have a tendency even now not to read anything but the dialogue when I get a script. I don't like stage directions, I don't like hearing, 'She walks down the street jauntily'. I know I walk down the street, I might not be jaunty, I don't want to know what they think. I want to figure it out, right? So I don't read any of the stage directions. So on this job, it was a really quick job, I finished and I got killed by the mummy, and I went over to the director and say goodbye and 'Thank you for this great opportunity' and he's like, 'You're not done.' I'm like, 'No, this is my last scene.' He goes, 'No, no… you didn't finish reading the script, did you?' Because I turn into a mummy at the end and I come back and I kill somebody else, but it was all in stage directions and I never read it! So it was so incredibly unprofessional of me, I didn't read the script!"

I definitely didn't think we'd hear Moore discuss Tales from the Darkside on the Tonight Show in 2021, so this was a nice surprise and a fun story. The clip from the show is embedded below.

Directed by John Harrison, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie has the following synopsis: 

The first of three dark tales involves resentful student Bellingham (Steve Buscemi) looking to an Egyptian mummy for help in settling some scores. Then, hit man Halston (David Johansen) is contracted to kill a cat that has terrorized and even killed members of an extremely wealthy family. Lastly, struggling artist Preston (James Remar) witnesses a demon commit a bizarre murder on a city street, but agrees to keep it a secret when the devilish being promises wealth in return for his silence.

Scripted by Michael McDowell, the segment Moore is in is called Lot 249 and was based on a short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The second segment, Cat from Hell, was written by George A. Romero and based on a story by Stephen King. McDowell also wrote the third segment, Lover's Vow, which is inspired by a spirit in Japanese folklore.

The film's cast also includes Deborah Harry, Christian Slater, William Hickey, and Rae Dawn Chong.