Julianne Moore wants to see “real representation” for marginalised groups in Hollywood

Speaking in an interview with Variety magazine, she said: “I’ve thought about that a lot. Here we were, in this movie about a queer family, and all of the principal actors were straight. I look back and go, ‘Ouch. Wow.’ I don’t know that we would do that today, I don’t know that we would be comfortable.

“We need to give real representation to people, but I’m grateful for all of the experiences that I’ve had as an actor because my job is to communicate a universality of experience to the world. The idea that, rather than othering people, we’re saying we’re all the same. Our humanity is shared.”

The movie also sees Julianne’s character, Jules, embark on a sexual relationship with her sperm donor, a straight man named Paul, who was played by Mark Ruffalo.

And Julianne has said she can understand why people “took issue” with a lesbian character “having an affair with her sperm donor”.

She added: “I can see why people took issue with a lesbian character having an affair with her sperm donor. On the other hand, I think that Jules’ character was someone described as being very fluid, sexually and personally. She was floating, in the sense of her entire identity - as a woman, as a person, in her career.”

Following Julianne’s comments, the movie’s director Lisa Cholodenko - who based the film off of her own attempts to start a family with her partner Wendy Melvoin - has defended the casting, as she said she simply hired whoever was “most compelling for that job”.

Lisa said: “When I cast Julianne and Annette [Bening, who played Jules’ girlfriend Nic], I really felt like, on the continuum of gayness, I could feel their gayness. It didn’t feel phoney to me. I didn’t feel like I was putting somebody in an outfit and asking them to parade as something that was false.”