Diane Lane: Lane Changes

Q: Do you want to get married again?

A: I can't fathom why I would, and I say char without bitterness. I'd have to fall so chemically, intoxicatingly, trustingly, hormonally in love that I needed the promise of that bond. That's what you marry for.

Q: You're doing the psychological thriller The Glass House-with Leelee Sobieski. You haven't done many thrillers before, have you?

A: I've avoided them brilliantly for years because I usually find that they require too much suspended disbelief for me to sit in a theater. The only one I ever did was far from the proudest moment of my career, and I really only did it because I wanted to see my husband, and the only way to do that was to work with him. But this ones good. It's a dark, macabre nightmare. I inherit Leelee after her parents get killed...

Q: ... and then all hell breaks loose.

A: Yeah, but slowly. Slowly.

Q: Were you a good girl as a teenager or a hellion?

A: I was rebellious, but I also knew not to push it too far. I was bad enough to get away with it and not bad enough to hurt myself or anyone else.

Q: What movie gave you the creeps when you were a kid?

A: A Clockwork Orange. I was just shocked to bits. I think it was the rape scenes that did it to me. I was nine years old, way too young.

Q: Did your parents take you to see it?

A: No. From about age six to 13, I was in a traveling theater company. We were in Denmark doing a play when I saw that movie.

Q: What kind of plays would you do?

A: Greek tragedies like Medea. I died in every play I did. I'd get stabbed or thrown off a cliff or strangled. It was great.

Q: Since your parents weren't around, who took care of you?

A: Well, I would just ask if I could be with a certain person each day, like, "Can I be with you today?" I had my idols in the company.

Q: Was it ever scary not being with your family?

A: No. There was very much a family feeling to the group. It felt like I'd joined the circus. It was fun.

Q: How did that experience shape you as an adult?

A: It made me wish I'd been older during the sexual revolution! [Laughs]

Q: Were there all sorts of shenanigans going on?

A: Absolutely, but I was completely unaware of it. My innocence remained intact, emotionally and otherwise.

Q: What sight or smell takes you back to that time?

A: Candle wax. We performed in really interesting, unusual, historical venues like Greek ruins or on beaches, usually with torches and candles.

Q: What's the worst thing that ever went wrong for you onstage?

A: I think peeing while playing dead was pretty bad.

Q: Did working as a kid seem unusual to you?

A: I took it for granted that this was a normal expenditure of energy. We only toured in summers. The rest of the year I went to PS 59. I'd do school, then rehearsal, go home and do homework, then get up and go to school again, and this went on and on and on. Finally, when I got into high school, I'd go into the wheelchair stall in the bathroom and pass out on the cold tile right when I got to school. I wouldn't even go to class.

Q: Did you finally just crash and burn and quit?

A: Well, I wanted to quit and get a Ph.D. in something and prove to everybody I was really smart, but they offered me A Little Romance and I just thought, "What idiot could possibly turn down Laurence Olivier and Venice?"

Q: A Little Romance was your film debut. When you got that part, were you nervous about it or did you think you were pretty hot stuff?

A: I was just so flabbergasted, because auditioning was so ho-hum, but suddenly I'd lucked into a film. It's like, you don't think you're going to get pregnant from sex until you do. And then it's like, "Oh my God, it's true!"

Q: What's your favorite memory of Laurence Olivier?

A: His telling off-color jokes about the Royal Family.

Q: Did you have a crush on the boy who played opposite you, Thelonious Bernard?

A: Yeah, I had a thing for him but we got along terribly. We were coming into puberty and I thought it'd be fun to flirt and he'd say things back to me in French like, "Shut your face, bitch!" Later, we had to do that scene where we kiss on the bridge, but by then he was just my friend and I was like, "Too little, too late."

Q: Did you get along well with Matt Dillon, with whom you've made three movies? There was an item in People years ago that said you didn't like him.

A: People just love to take us back to 16-year-old misquoted, bitchy moments. I adore Matt. I feel about him as though he were a brother. It was a very unusual relationship back then. We didn't talk unless the cameras were rolling. There were definitely sparks, but we saved it for the cameras.

Q: You left Hollywood for a while after doing The Cotton Club. Why?

A: I felt an earthquake and I freaked out. I got a U-Haul and put everything in it and drove home to Georgia. I didn't like any of the things that were being offered to me and I was exhausted. I'd been working since I was six without time to reflect and be hungry for the meal.

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