Actress Julianne Moore on today made Italy stand up and take notice at the Rome Film Festival, where she called the homophobic remarks made by Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi “idiotic.”

At a presser following a screening of Lisa Cholodenko’s “The Kids Are Allright,” in which she plays a lesbian parent, Moore was asked what she thought about a statement by Berlusconi who on Tuesday dismissed calls to resign over a scandal centered around a 17-year-old girl saying it was “better to like beautiful girls than be gay.”

“I think it’s unfortunate, archaic and idiotic, to hint or to say that there is something wrong with homosexuality… it’s embarrassing when people continue to perpetrate these untruths,”  Moore was  being honored with a lifetime achievement award at the Festival.

Ma que bella donna!