Dern recognizes significance of her different ‘girl next door’
The theme of luck and the sound of laughter recur with frequency when talking with Laura Dern.
The Oscar-nominated actress, who has toggled between film and television throughout her nearly 40-year career, is chatting about HBO’s adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s 2014 best-seller, “Big Little Lies.” The seven-episode limited series reunites her with “Wild” co-star and friend Reese Witherspoon and director Jean-Marc Vallee.
It is among multiple projects the 50-year-old Los Angeles native, fresh off roles in “The Founder” and “Certain Women,” is juggling on what has been her very full dance card of late. In addition to “Big Little Lies,” Dern will head back to TV and reunite with one of her favorite directors, David Lynch, for Showtime’s “Twin Peaks” reboot, arriving May 21. She co-stars with Woody Harrelson in the charming character study “Wilson,” in theaters next month, and has been working on “Star Wars: Episode VIII — The Last Jedi,” due out Dec. 15.
We recently chatted with Dern. The following is an edited transcript.
A: I’ve been incredibly lucky. Sometimes you don’t always have choice as a young actor, but it’s the directors that found me as a young teen and said, “I want you to be a character actor in this story as ‘the girl.’ ” So my “girl next door” was with David Lynch (“Blue Velvet”) and Peter Bogdanovich (“Mask”), so I didn’t know different and, therefore, I always sought out that similar sensibility.
A: Oh, very much so. I will say at 15 years old I was given an opportunity for what could have been, and ultimately was, a very popular teen film that could have brought accolades and great success and all those things, and I was also offered a small role in Peter Bogdanovich’s film “Mask.” And it is only because I was raised by the parents I have that I knew to choose Peter Bogdanovich.
A: Totally different. It was pivotal. And Martin Scorsese said something so beautiful to me when I was 23. I met him on “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” which my mom was in, and I was tiny, and he made me an extra in the movie. I told him how he had said a few things to me that really were the defining things that made me say, “I want to be an actor,” which had stuck in my head since age 6. And he said, “I’ve been watching you. You’re building a body of work like a filmmaker does. That’s what an actor should do.” And I was like, “OK, God has spoken.” (Laughs.) Feb. 26 birthdays: Singer Fats Domino is 89. Actor-director Bill Duke is 74. Singer Mitch Ryder is 72. Singer Michael Bolton is 64. Actor Greg Germann is 59. Actor Mark Dacascos is 53. Actress Jennifer Grant is 51. Singer Erykah Badu is 46.