Always Wanting Moore

''As the World Turns'' half sisters Frannie and Sabrina may have been the luckiest soap opera characters ever. One was American, the other British. One was charming and victimized, the other cold and selfish. They both, however, had the good fortune of being brought to life in the mid-1980s by future Academy Award nominee Julianne Moore. ''If you're going to do a soap, you always want to play twins,'' says Moore. ''But then you learn that there's nothing more boring than acting with yourself, because you know what's going to happen.''

Since then, Moore's career has hardly been predictable. She's shuttled between the ghastliest of schlockers, the edgiest of indies, and the priciest of blockbusters. And this season, with two highly touted performances -- as a 1950s house-wife in November's '''' and a suicidal mom in December's ''The Hours'' -- Moore delivers a one-two punch that could make her the first performer nominated for dual acting Oscars since Emma Thompson and Holly Hunter were in 1994.

Here Moore, 41, reminisces about the unforgettable women she's embodied on screen.

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