THE PRIME OF LAURA
She’s having a ‘Dernaissance’
There’s a word making the rounds of Hollywood that you may not have heard: ‘Dernaissance’.
Laura Dern, the fabulous 52-year-old actress descended from Tinseltown royalty, is having a moment – and she intends to make the most of every second.
Lauded for her razor-sharp portrayal of mean Monterey mum Renata in hit TV show Big Little Lies, Laura, the daughter of actors Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd, is enjoying the most fruitful period of her career, and will soon be gracing the big screen as Marmee in the upcoming movie version of Little Women.
“I feel the fire in me,” she says. “It’s not just that we’re getting work,” she adds, referring also to her female contemporaries and friends, including Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman, “it’s that we’re playing complicated, dynamic and incredibly diverse characters. It’s an amazing new world, a gorgeous time when you can do all of it, and I don’t think I’ve loved it this much before.”
Although she’s riding a professional high, Laura is candid about her personal struggles, and says the hardest part of her life is being a single parent to son Ellery (18) and daughter Jaya (14), her kids with her ex-husband, musician Ben Harper (50).
“On good days, I am kind enough to remember that there are growing pains, and it is all overwhelming and not easy or always fun.
“On the hard days, it’s stressful and there is too much going on as a single parent
– and it can be hard to carve out a minute for yourself. [But] I’ve never had anybody else bully me in my single parenting life. I am lucky to have champions around me, but I can definitely do it myself.”
Having split from Ben in 2013 after eight years of marriage, Laura, whose films include Jurassic Park, Blue Velvet and Mask, has been happily single – and she says it’s only made her more ambitious and determined to succeed.
“The more I learn about my mistakes as a mother, the deeper I enjoy how fully I love my children, because I can let them know I really screw up sometimes. I hide from blame in a lot of areas of my life, but I’m trying not to do that as a mum.
“This is the first time in my life that I am being ambitious. Because I am a single parent, raising kids gave me enough street cred to feel like I had the right to make money. This moment in my life is so sexy and freeing because I’ve had many relationships, I’ve had a marriage, I have my amazing children, so I’m not hiding who I am to get somebody who is willing to have kids or get married.”
Plus, she has a fabulous posse of gal pals who are collectively redefining what it means to be a 40-plus woman in Hollywood.
Whereas Laura has been in and around the business all her life – she had her first role at 11 – Reese and Nicole were slightly older when they entered the industry and, according to
Laura, had “a little more street fight in them, because they didn’t come from it”.
She says she came into the business thinking she needed to apologise for already having a name.
“‘Ambition’ was a dirty word for women when I was a little girl. Women who were ambitious were cold, calculating and unsexy – that was the idea presented in my generation. To be sexy was to be demure, subservient even – and I was raised by actresses! I saw powerful women as artists, or daring to challenge the medical profession and fighting to be doctors, but they weren’t in a boardroom.”
Of course, times have changed drastically – and though she’s conquering ageism in Hollywood through sheer grit, she’s still remarkably normal, and says she’s learnt so much from her Big Little Lies co-stars, such as the importance of self-care, the toxic nature of gossip and that divorce is tough “no matter who you are”.
“I’ve learned heartbreak hits everyone and stays with you your whole life,” she says.
“Being part of a tribe handling this subject matter, and realising everyone knows these stories, has been really healing and powerful. I’ve also learned that bliss is a birthright, and so is ambition for what we want to achieve, how we want to change the world, and the person we see ourselves growing into.”