I kind of love that Julianna Margulies still makes the big fashion magazine covers. She’s over 40 years old, and she’s a television star, not a movie star. By most Hollywood standards, she should only get the odd TV Guide cover, but I think mags keep putting Julianna on because women love her, and because she’s a great interview. Anyway, she’s the cover girl for the January issue of Harper’s Bazaar. The cover story was written by Julianna’s The Good Wife costar and friend, Alan Cumming (full piece here). Here are the highlights:

ALAN CUMMING: What do you think is sexy?
JULIANNA MARGULIES: Two scoops of double-chocolate-chip ice cream in a bowl with some chocolate syrup.

AC: When do you feel sexy?
JM: It depends what mood I’m in. When I’m tired, I don’t feel very sexy. I feel sexy when I’m happy. If I’m going out on a date with my husband, I want to feel sexy. I want him to see me that way. So I think you have to make an effort. When you’re in love, you feel sexy. It’s an endorphin that comes out, but in a different way than endorphins after you’ve worked out. I never feel that sexy after I work out [laughs]. Well, maybe after the shower.

AC: Speaking of the gym, didn’t you come back to work after the summer with a ridiculously pert booty?
JM: I became obsessed with this step machine. Apparently they’ve been around forever. I can now do it backwards without hands. Within five minutes, you’re sweating and you can literally see your bum lift up. I’m one of those strange people: I really love going to the gym.

AC: How are you resisting all the goodies from the craft-service table on set at 3:00 A.M.?
JM: When you’re tired, you grab for crappy food. Most of the time I have willpower and grab almonds or healthy food, but every now and then you just say, F-ck it, I need chocolate. And that’s okay, I think. Everything in moderation.

AC: Including moderation! And you have a fantastic body, Julianna.
JM [laughs]: You’d have to ask my husband that.

AC: Speaking of the husband [lawyer Keith Lieberthal], you said you always thought you wouldn’t get married.
JM: It’s not that I didn’t want to get married as much as I didn’t feel like I was the marrying type. I saw myself as someone who would always have a partner, but I never liked the feeling of what marriage said. Looking back, I think I was just mostly scared of it. Strangely, when the time was right, it all seemed to make sense. There’s a big difference in what you think you’re supposed to be and what you suddenly realize you are.

AC: You certainly lucked out with Keith. How did you meet him?
JM: Funny, he and I would never travel the same circles. One night, I went to a birthday party at [New York restaurant] Raoul’s. I walked in, and there was Keith, my husband. I thought because he was so good looking that he was an actor or model or something. He started chatting me up, and I said, “Listen, I think you’re lovely, but, please, what do you do? Because I’ve been there, done that, and it’s nothing against actors, but I’m not interested.” And he said, “Well, that’s good, because I’m a lawyer.” And that was it.

AC: Interesting you say that about not wanting to be with an actor. ?
JM: I think that there’s a few who could do it right. Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman. Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon. I think it’s a very tough thing to be successful at. Someone’s always going to feel left out or “less than.” All I ever knew before was dating actors, because that’s who I met. And I remember turning 35 and being like, “I’m done. I’d rather be alone than be miserable in a relationship.”

AC: I suppose we are always judged, and so you judge yourself next to your partner.
JM: Well, actors, sadly, define themselves by what work they’re doing.

AC: Oh, I hate when you ask how they are doing and they reply with what they’ve been doing.
JM: I remember–and it was such a sad moment for me–bumping into two actor friends I hadn’t seen in so long on the street on Broadway, and I was six months pregnant with Kieran, waddling down the street, and they both looked to me so glamorous and gorgeous Hollywood. They both listed right away everything they had just done. All I could think of was this little thing inside of me and “I hope I never sound like that to you.” I remember feeling “less than.” I walked away, like, “I’m just kind of fat and pregnant.”

AC: That aside, did you feel all sexy when you were pregnant?
JM: Yeah, till the very end, when it just became uncomfortable. I mean, I got married pregnant. Narciso Rodriguez made my gown. I’ve known him forever, and I remember standing there on top of these stairs, and he had made me the most beautiful dress. I remember looking at him–it was just him and me, and it was finally quiet for a minute–and I said it shouldn’t be any other way. It just felt so right having the baby there. I loved it.

AC: Did you have a clock-ticking thing? Were you craving to be pregnant?
JM: I got pregnant at 40 by surprise. It’s funny, because when we found out we were pregnant, I said, Okay, let’s experience that. You just have to just go with it because it’s rare.

AC: You seem to have a really good handle on how to balance your work, your marriage, and your child.
JM: It’s tricky being a working mom. You feel guilt all the way around. You want to be there for your husband, be there for your kids, be great at your job, all that stuff. But at the end of the day, if you put everyone in front of you, what happens to you? I think all these 1950s Leave It to Beaver housewives suddenly woke up and went, “What about me? F-ck you all. You know how hard this is? I’ve had dinner on the table, I’ve figured this out, and now you’re sleeping with your secretary?” I do believe the balance lies in yourself. I can’t say I can do it all, because I can’t.

AC: Your character, Alicia, obviously chooses to stay with her politician husband despite his cheating. How would you bounce back from that as a woman, sexually?
JM: Personally, I don’t know how you could. It’s not just hearing about your husband cheating or being with hookers. She’s seen it on YouTube, on the news. She’s seen the women. How do you close your eyes and feel love for this person in an intimate moment? Good lord, I couldn’t do it.

AC: You couldn’t?
JM: I have never been in that situation. And where I am now with my husband and child, I can’t imagine it happening. But maybe if it happened to me and the forgiveness was real and truthful and I believed it, I’d always give it a shot. I don’t think you throw the baby out with the bathwater. Everyone messes up, and we’re all allowed mistakes.

AC: You seem to be in such a great place in your life right now, Jules.
JM: Honestly, I feel so overwhelmed with how lucky I am right now. I gave this graduation speech at Sarah Lawrence, my alma mater, in May. One of the things I wanted to convey to these students is to live your life truthfully, do what’s right for you–not what others think is right for you. Nothing good happens out of fear. Do what you love doing. It might be scary because you’re taking a risk, but at the end of the day you can say you tried.

AC: Like Polonius said in Hamlet, “To thine own self be true.”
JM: It’s like the Buddhist saying: “Walk down the street and smile at a stranger. He’ll smile at the next stranger passing by, and then the whole street is smiling. And no one knows why.”

[From Harper’s Bazaar]

If it’s possible, I love her even more. You know what I think it is? Julianna is real. Yes, she’s beautiful and happy and she has a charmed life, but she’s not putting herself out there as “better than” or “the most”. In interviews, she just comes across like a working wife and mother who genuinely struggles to fit everything in. As I was reading this, I ended up comparing her in my mind to Sarah Jessica Parker, and how SJP wants to come across as super-eccentric and brilliant and “special” in interviews. Julianna is just herself. Love.

Here’s the Bazaar video:

Photos courtesy of Harper’s Bazaar. Cover courtesy of I‘m Not Obsessed.