Julianne Moore stays close to home in new movie

NEW YORK, Aug 19 (Reuters) Julianne Moore plays an actress whose husband cheats on her and is a self-confessed sex addict in her new film ''Trust the Man,'' which was written and directed by her husband, Bart Freundlich.

But don't go making assumptions about their marriage, they hasten to say while promoting the film in New York, where they live. The movie was filmed on the city's streets and in the restaurants and bars they frequent in Greenwich Village.

''I've never been to a sex addicts' meeting, although I think probably every guy thinks he's a sex addict if you ask him,'' said Freundlich. He has two young children with Moore, as do the couple in the movie, which opened yesterday. Both of Moore's children appear in the film as her children.

Oscar-nominated Moore plays Rebecca, whose marriage to Tom, played by David Duchovny, is in a rut. Her brother Tobey, played by Billy Crudup, is a lazy slacker unwilling to commit to his girlfriend, Elaine, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Freundlich said there were elements of his character in both men in the film, a romantic comedy about the gulf between the way men and women approach life.

''They're both extremes,'' he said. ''I'm somewhere between the two of them ... I'm sort of freelance like Tobey is (but) I don't sit in my car and make grilled cheese. I don't cheat on my wife, I don't stay home and take care of the kids all the time, but I do some of the time.'' Moore said while there was a certain amount of autobiography in the movie, particularly ''the affection and the importance of our relationship and our family life,'' it was a mistake to take movies too literally.

''You have a germ of an idea in something that might be based in a reality but not all of it's true, it's just to illuminate something,'' she said in an interview. She added that a scene where she chokes while gulping down a slice of cake late at night was inspired by something that really happened.

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