At the LA press day for the Focus Features film, Moore revealed she was the first actor to sign on to the project. "I think we met, it was like a 'Women in Film' luncheon," recalled Moore on her first meeting with Cholodenko. "It was in this hotel and I said how much I loved her movies. I loved Laurel Canyon. I loved High Art. I was like, 'Why didn’t I see the script to High Art?' It was a very actory thing to say and she was like, 'Uh, I think you were working.' And I’m like, 'Mm, I don't think so.' So yes, that was when we met. And she sent me [this] so I was the first person I think to sign on to it, but I love Lisa’s work. I love her."
And Moore's love also extends to Jules, her character in the film. "I love how she’s someone who’s so kind of present emotionally and so good at connecting with people and communicating but is incredibly lost. Her first child, her oldest child is leaving for college, the next one’s going to go probably in a couple years and she’s sort of at this point where she’s like, 'What have I been doing for the last 18 years or what am I going to do with the rest of it?' So like [Annette Bening's character] Nic says, she really puts the car before the horse. She acts as if. She just puts it out there and drags it in and what she drags back is not the most helpful thing. But the searching quality I really loved about her."
"I think she’s smart," added Moore. "It’s interesting emotionally. I think she’s the one who’s got the antenna. I think that’s what I like. I like that she kind of feels first and thinks later."
Moore and Bening play a couple who've been married for a long time, have two teenagers, and have gone through all the normal ups and downs that come with years of being together as a couple. They're also affectionate and loving. That part of the character and how they handled showing it onscreen came organically to both Moore and Bening. "I think the thing Annette and I have going for us is that we’ve both been married for a really long time and we’re both parents," explained Moore. "We’ve been in these kind of committed situations for a long time so the degree of affection that we showed to one another was, I think, concomitant to how the characters felt about each other and how connected they were. So even though there’s different stuff going on with them, they still touch each other and sit on the couch together and kiss each other hello."
"I love the scene where she’s obviously the one that’s more shaken up by the knowledge of them wanting to find their dad, so we kind of did this thing where I put my arm around her like that because she’s like shell-shocked. So, yeah, we wanted them to be affectionate and married."
Cholodenko's script called for each of the moms to be the biological mother of one of the children, and Moore said that that's not uncommon in real relationships. "It depends on the couple. It really depends on the couple whether or not one...in male couples that I’ve met too sometimes they’ll both be sperm donors and use the same egg donor, or they’ll use somebody’s sister’s egg. This one couple I know used the sister’s egg and one of the partner’s sperm. It’s like all this weird whatever. Whatever you decide, whatever, but I think I kind of like that idea that they both had a child biologically and that there were some genetic resemblances as well. I thought that was kind of cool. When you look at me and Josh, you wouldn’t think but then you kind of go, 'Oh yeah, yeah, they look alike,' and then Mia and Annette. There’s something similar, and I think we all kind of did it a little bit unconsciously too because it was kind of an interesting idea."
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The Kids Are All Right is rated R for strong sexual content, nudity, language and some teen drug and alcohol use and hits theaters on July 9, 2010.
