Diane Lane - Brief Article - Interview

Interview, May, 2000 by Gena Rowlands

FORECAST: COMEBACK ACTRESS CAUSES A PERFECT STORM

DIANE LANE: Hi, Gena.

GENA BOWLANDS: Hi, Di. How are you?

DL: Oh, jimdandy.

GR: Are you still looping [when actors rerecord dialogue] for this summer's The Perfect Storm?

DL: We just finished.

GR: I had visions of people running in with buckets of water and throwing them at you.

DL: Yes, cattle wars in the looping room. Aren't you going on a cruise?

GR: I am. Matter of fact, I'm just picking my clothes to see what's going to fit and what isn't. We're going places I've really wanted to go, like Barcelona. Then we're going to Istanbul to stay at one of those sultan palaces that have been turned into hotels. Altogether I'm afraid it's just a regular flake-out summer.

DL: Your going through your clothes is a lot better than me going through mine now, because here comes Oscar season with all its parties and promotional tours, and my clothes are all over the floor because I've moved. I don't know what's laundry and what's from the '80s and what's couture and what I have to return to designers.

GR: Did you pick your Oscar dress?

DL: I haven't decided if I'm going to completely boycott all these glamorous invitations and have a pity party because I feel so overwhelmed or if I'm going to shore it up one more time. Suck it in, stick it out, wear the dress, do the turn for the paparazzi and have a cocktail. I didn't want to go through that again, but actually, it might be a reprieve from my "real life."

GR: Listen, from having your clothes all over the floor [ldots] it sounds not like a kick in the head.

DL: As my dad used to say, better than a sharp stick in the eye.

GR: How is your dad [Burt Lane ran a theater group with Rowlands' late husband, John Cassavetes]?

DL: He's doing great, thanks for asking. I was jumping up and down, I was so excited to work with you, Gena [on the 1998 television film Grace and Glorie]. You're not only an icon, you're part of my family's heritage.

GR: Speaking of family, do you have any pets?

DL: Not right now, but I've had a lot in the past, and once my daughter's a little older I'd like to get a cat. At one point my mother, who lives in Georgia, must have had as many as forty-some-odd cats running around. We had acres, and they would just hang off the screen doors because they were hungry. There was a little kitten so unbelievably sickly that she couldn't hold her head up; her head was too big for her body because she was so malnourished. I just basically kept her on my chest. She lived there for a week and I cut all her hair off, because she had such bad ringworm. I prayed to God; I said, Look, I'm going to name her Miracle if you will help me save her life. And it worked. She bounded back. She got fat and furry and loving, and if you looked at her, she would purr audibly at you. She would heave towards you and salivate like, I want to kiss you and kiss you now. I called her a love bomb. Now my mother has become this chicken person.

GR: She's moved from cats to chickens.

DL: Well, we always had chickens, but now they're half indoors, half outdoors. Sometimes we'll find eggs that are too far along, so she'll hatch them in the laundry room and then we'll have these little peepers that we have to keep away from the cats. But they all get along, it's pretty funny.

GR: Speaking of hatching, do you have some new projects you're working on?

DL: I do. It's called The Glass House. I'm very relieved that they pushed filming back a month because in the mayhem of my current life, shooting a film would just push me over the edge--I might become "method." In the film I play a junkie. My character is a bit of a villainess, and that's a nice shift. After the apple-pie sweet-mother role in My Dog Skip, I feel like I've been given permission to give the devil his due.

GR: Exactly. You're young, you should go for all of the roles. Well, we'll get together afterwards.

DL: I would love that. We can be loud and boisterous and ruffle the feathers of the customers next to us again.

GR: Certainly, always.

Gena Rowlands has acted in films, television, and on the stage. She stars in the fall release The Weekend. Diane Lane, photographed with Mercer and Sam the Hungarian vizalas, wears a coat and skirt by Yohji Yamamoto.