Welcome to Random Roles, wherein we talk to actors about the characters who defined their careers. The catch: They don’t know beforehand what roles we’ll ask them to talk about.
The actor: Diane Lane was six years old when she began acting professionally, appearing in a production of Medea. By 12, she was appearing in Joseph Papp’s production of The Cherry Orchard in a cast that also included Meryl Streep, Raul Julia, and Irene Worth. It wasn’t entirely surprising when she made her film debut at age 13. The film was A Little Romance, and her co-star was Laurence Olivier—not a bad way to start an on-camera career.
That career has continued steadily ever since, taking Lane through a wide variety of roles that have ranged from a punk rock singer in Ladies And Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains to legendary horse owner/breeder Penny Chenery in Secretariat, not to mention working with Kenny Rogers in the ’80s cable staple Six Pack. Currently, she can be seen co-starring with Kyle Chandler in the political thriller Anniversary, which comes a little closer to mirroring current goings-on than was intended when it was filmed. The A.V. Club only had a limited amount of time for this Random Roles, but we’re cautiously optimistic that we’ll get to dive back in for a second round in the future.
The A.V. Club: I was able to watch this last night, and it was one of the most terrifying films I’ve seen in recent memory.
Diane Lane: Well, right on time for Halloween. We try to deliver. [Laughs.]
AVC: How did you find your way into the film? Did they reach out to you?
DL: Yes, they did. I got to read the screenplay, and then I met with Jan Komasa, the director. He wanted to tell this story, so it was very close to his heart, and he worked with Lori Rosene-Gambino to create the screenplay, which she wrote. But he was the man for the job. I’d seen his films, and I’m a fan of his work. It was nice to be in the first English-speaking film that he’d done. I don’t know if you’ve seen The Hater, but it’s pretty great.
AVC: Did you have any hesitation about taking on a topic like this, given the current political climate?
DL: We didn’t know that this current climate was coming! We filmed this in the late spring/early summer of 2023. We thought we were coming out prior to the elections, and we thought it was going to be, like, “Hello! Cautionary tale!” And now… You know, I wish it were more fictitious than it is!
AVC: It’s remarkable watching the various characters either evolve or devolve over the course of the film. Did you find it challenging to capture the gradual devastation?
DL: Well, that’s the title, isn’t it? Anniversary. We measure time, and we look back and we say, my gosh, it’s been a year, or it’s been two years of this. How long has this been going on? I mean, look, the weaponization of the weak spots of our government, in terms of the arm-wrestling that’s always going on, that’s why it was so great to have a Polish filmmaker. Because he certainly knows firsthand from the history of his country how much you must endure, and how much you must persevere, to keep what is the experiment of our young country.
AVC: Your performance at the very end of the film, it’s really tremendous.
DL: Thanks. It was, um, a nightmare. [Laughs.] It was a nightmare to just imagine it, and then to bring it to life was very scary. It makes me emotional just to imagine it, so to try to do that for everybody on the set that day. Yeah, it’s a powerful film. I’m very honored and still feel lucky to be in it.
Six Pack (1982)—”Heather ‘Breezy’ Aikens”
AVC: Believe it or not, this was your most-requested film role when I posted about our impending interview.
DL: Oh, my gosh, well, I mean, Kenny Rogers was the sweetest man ever. He had a production company called Lion Share, and I remember he got 50 cents on every $5 gross at the box office. And I thought, “Well, aptly named company that you got there! Lion’s share, indeed…” But, no, he was an extremely generous man. At one point he heard that I was wanting to learn how to play the guitar, so he gifted me a beautiful Takamine guitar that’s an acoustic, but you can play it through an amp. I still have that. It’s amazing. And at one point he also flew my father and I on a helicopter to his concert in Atlantic City. And my father was so uncomfortable. He said, “I’m not getting on a helicopter! This is outrageous! We can just take the train! We’ll be fine!” And Kenny said, “No, you don’t understand: If I don’t spend the money, I can’t keep it.” He had a whole understanding of things that was beyond my grasp.
Ladies And Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains (1982)—”Corrine Burns”
AVC: When I asked Laura Dern about The Fabulous Stains, she said that she celebrated her 13th birthday on the set and learned never to take drugs from watching [Steve Jones and Paul Cook of] the Sex Pistols.
DL: Wow. That’s accomplishing a lot in a short amount of time, isn’t it?
AVC: What do you recall about the experience?
DL: When you read a script, you hope that it’s going to play as you visualize it in your mind. My father was very nervous, and my mother, too, because it was a long way from Laurence Olivier [in A Little Romance] to working with Lou Adler. I mean, he’s a legend in his own field, but at that point he’d only directed Up In Smoke, and I don’t think my parents really were the demographic for that. [Laughs.] So they were a little concerned. And I was, like, “You’ve gotta trust me! It’s of the zeitgeist!” I didn’t even know what that word meant yet. But it was February 1980, I had just turned 15, and it was a wild time! The guys from the Sex Pistols were completely daunting to me, and Paul Simonon of the Clash just wanted to get the heck out of there so that he could get on the tour with his band. They had just exploded in the United States. So, yeah, it was a wild time!
A Walk On The Moon (1999)—”Pearl Kantrowitz”
DL: That was really one from the heart. Getting to work with Tony Goldwyn—that was his directorial debut. I love films like that, where it’s about the whole family, and you get to see everybody’s perspective, not just one person’s or two people’s. I really went through a lot of emotions on that. It was an amazing time. My daughter was five years old, so it was a minute ago. I think originally it was called The Blouse Man, and it was just a great character. To go into the history of the Catskills, and the way the people would go up there and have their communal vacations together in the summers. The whole culture was a big discovery for me, because I was of a different generation. It was very heartwarming. Tovah Feldshuh was great in that. It was such a great cast. Viggo Mortensen, my God. Liev Schreiber. Just amazing. And it was the first time that Dustin Hoffman was a producer on a film with his production company. I was, like, “Thank you for hiring me. You didn’t have to.”
Streets Of Fire (1984)—”Ellen Aim”
AVC: Did you have any idea what was going on in this movie?
DL: What do you mean by “what was going on?” Do you mean behind the scenes or?
AVC: Well, it’s a little all over the place. It’s a great film, in that I can’t take my eyes off of it, but it’s a little convoluted.
DL: I mean, yeah, it’s a male fantasy. Sorry, not to genderize it. [Laughs.] But I’m looking at the male gaze, and there I am, living up to it. So that was my job. It was…fine. It was very much a comic-book type of story. It felt like it could’ve almost been…not animated, but close to it. It was good times, but the ’80s were a weird decade. Not my favorite.
Unfaithful (2002)—”Connie Sumner”
DL: That was an amazing opportunity, to work with Adrian Lyne, and he’s the maestro of his milieu. He really knows what he’s doing with these…I guess for lack of a better term, I’ll say sexual thriller. He gets under your skin. As an actor, we had moments together that were very challenging. I would have dinner with him every night of the week, he’s so much fun, but when you work with somebody, you get to know them in a different way. And working with him was interesting. He’s a taskmaster, you know? And I’m grateful that he got the performance out of me that he did. But I don’t think I have two of those in me.
Secretariat (2010)—”Penny Chenery”
DL: Getting to spend time with the real Penny was amazing. She’s still on my voicemail. I saved her messages because she was such a lovebug. She said, “Diane, we have a seat at the race,” whichever one it was, the Belmont Stakes or whatever, “and we’d love for you to come down and attend!” And I did one time, and we got to be in the parade together, and she was the real one and I was the Disney version. [Laughs.] And we were waving, and it was very surreal. It was like Elvis in Nashville, she was such a heroine of her profession, her industry. Her story, I’m so glad it got told. And then I got to narrate her documentary about her [Penny & Red: The Life Of Secretariat’s Owner]. Just the parts where there wasn’t any dialogue, they asked me to do, and I was honored to do that. When you’ve had the Disney version of your life told, you have to have a rebuttal!
AVC: Are you much of an equestrian yourself?
DL: Yes, but Western saddle.
AVC: Which ties right into the next role…
Lonesome Dove (1989)—”Lorena Wood”
DL: Some jobs never leave you, in a good way. And that one, it was my father’s favorite thing that I was ever in, and the performances that everybody gave to live up to the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, and Bill Wittliff—I just can’t believe he didn’t win the Emmy. I’m still pissed about it! What he did to get that book to the screen was just incomparable. I’ve never seen anything like it. And the love of the fans for that book, the way they really held our feet to the fire and made sure that Lorena’s scar was just a certain way. Everybody was all up in our business, telling us how they wanted us to live up to the book. [Laughs.] It was a lot of pressure, but also in a good way!
AVC: It’s also a sprawling epic, in a good way.
DL: In the best possible way. I want to read that book again! It was like The Perfect Storm. You sit down, and you can’t get up again until it’s read. It’s delicious.
Rumble Fish (1983)—”Patty”
AVC: Do you have a favorite project that you’ve worked on that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?
DL: Oh, golly, I’m not sure. Normally I’d say Ladies And Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains, because it was such a rabble-rousing kind of y’know, the riot grrrl kind of thing, and how you have to do that when you’re so young that you can get away with those kinds of attitudes. But you mentioned it already, so I can’t even cast it as the unloved child anymore! I mean, Rumble Fish was pretty great. I don’t know how many people get to see that film. It was of such a moment in time, because black-and-white, mixing it with color, and the fact that it was also a Susie Hinton book, and Francis Coppola really knows how to maximize. And when we were there, Stewart Copeland was playing the drums live on the set with us, to help us have a sense of time passing! It was like experimental theater, which I came from. As a child, I came from that in New York, at the La MaMa Theatre with Ellen Stewart. So I was very comfortable with that version of filmmaking. It was fun.
AVC: Funnily enough, I just watched your Tonight Show appearance where you were promoting Rumble Fish. You kissed Ed McMahon when you came out, and Johnny Carson seemed jealous.
DL: I didn’t know what to do! I panicked. I just didn’t know what to do. There was another time when I grabbed Jay Leno’s chin. Who does that? Who do I think I am? You get in these adrenalized moments just to survive the live broadcast. Or, live audience, but it feels like a live broadcast. You feel under the gun. So you want to be funny. And you hope they don’t backfire. I don’t know, those moments are always awkward. And now they live forever, so thanks a lot!
A Little Romance (1979)—”Lauren King”
AVC: Let’s circle back to the very beginning of your career to wrap up. Do you have a favorite Laurence Olivier memory?
DL: The fact that he just rehearsed with us was extraordinary. To have a 72-year-old gentleman who was a legend, an absolute legend, rehearse with us, and the fact that I got to be familiar with him. Because I watched public broadcasting, so I got to see Hamlet and Othello and Wuthering Heights and all these performances of his in black-and-white because it was available to watch at home. It wasn’t considered deep research, it was still being aired! So the fact that he was willing to rehearse with two 13-year-olds was pretty impressive to me. I was very touched by the fact that he knew that I was going to have to cry eventually, and would I be able to on cue? The terror, the terror…
AVC: I heard he called you “the new Grace Kelly.” Not a bad compliment to get from Olivier.
DL: [Sheepishly.] Yeah, well, I don’t know what to say about that. It was certainly something to live up to!
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
