Well, LA-DEE-DA!
Oscar-winning actress Diane Keaton on life, love affairs and leading men, vintage clothes, surfing and her new comedy, Mack & Rita
iane Keaton is sitting in the rooftop bar of one of Rome’s most exclusive hotels. She is offered a glass of water but wrinkles her nose. “I think we’ll have a real drink,” says the 76-yearold Oscar winner before two glasses of Lillet, a French aperitif, arrive at the table.
As we clink our glasses in a toast, she admires the panoramic view of the Eternal City. The Venetian Palace looms to the left, Vatican City to the right. “It’s just the most beautiful place,” says Keaton, who’s in the Italian capital to shoot the sequel Book Club 2: The Next Chapter, which reunites her with co-stars Candice Bergen, Jane
Fonda and Mary Steenburgen.
Has she been touring the ancient architecture and soaking up the spectacular high-culture sights when the cameras aren’t rolling? She smiles sheepishly. “Today we went to the [retail] outlets. You can see what sort of person I am. I love the outlets. I just bought this outfit.” Her clothes look expensive—a blue pantsuit with a white pinstripe—but she laughs at the illusion of Italian priciness. “It was so cheap!” she says, beaming.
DClothes shopping is one of Keaton’s great loves; she has always been something of a fashion icon with her turtlenecks, flowing outfits and wide-brimmed hats. It’s a passion that stretches back to her childhood in California, where she would pester her mother to take her to Goodwill stores to rifle through the vintage clothing. It’s also a trait that stitches into her latest movie, Mack & Rita (in theaters Aug. 12). The film, an age/bodyswapping comedy, features a 30-yearold self-proclaimed homebody, Mack (played by Elizabeth Lail), who unleashes her inner 70-yearold, literally—when a supernatural experience transforms her into her future self (Keaton), an older woman with a passion for life and vintage apparel. “I liked the gags a lot, and the people were nice,” says Keaton of the film. “I got to be an idiot in a movie; you don’t get that opportunity very often, to be goofy. It was easy.” While many actors claim that comedy is harder than drama, she offers a dissenting voice. “Comedy isn’t harder, at least for me. I am not that great at good drama. I wish I had been more of a physical comedian.”
AN ASPIRING BEAUTY QUEEN
Keaton’s love of performance, and goofing around, can be traced back to growing up as Diane Hall in Highland Park, a neighborhood in northeast Los Angeles, as the oldest of four siblings. One of the first things she wanted to do was to emulate her mother, Dorothy. “I remember as a kid I saw Mom crowned Mrs. Highland Park,” a socialite honor promoting marriage and family values. “I was about 6, and I saw her get the crown, and then they opened the curtain and there was this group of prizes, like a washer-dryer, and I said, ‘OK, I want to be up there. I want to get the crown.’ ”
“I think I am just a great lover of talent, that’s a good way of putting it.”
Her mother’s reign continued when she went on to claim an even bigger crown as Mrs. Los Angeles. “And then we moved to Santa Ana and that all stopped,” says Keaton, thanks to her dad’s new job. “He was the money earner. It is so typical in a lot of families.”
Her father, John, worked as a civil engineer and a real estate broker, while Dorothy was a homemaker, putting aside her own creative aspirations to raise her children. (Diane would change her surname to Keaton, her mother’s
ROLECALL
Keaton should have been an Oscar contender for Looking for Mr. Goodbar
though her lack of clothing in the sexy, steamy 1977 drama, featuring Richard Gere,
alarmed her father. “[He said] ‘Diane, why?’
Dad was worried; Mom was more OK with it. And then when it did well, it was all fine,” she recalls. She excelled in the 1984 period drama Mrs. Soffel (2), as a prison warden’s wife who falls in love with a convict She earned a third Oscar nomination for 1996’s Marvin’s Room co-starring and a fourth with the ever-popular 2003 lifestyle comedy alongside Jack Nicholson and
She directed 2000’s she also starred with
. In maiden name, when starting her acting career.)
Dorothy was a prolific journal-keeper (which inspired Keaton’s own writing, including the 2011 memoir Then Again), a keen photographer and a scrapbook enthusiast.
Many of Keaton’s fondest, most idyllic memories come from their time in coastal Santa Ana. “My family was always at the beach,” she recalls. “Dad loved surfing and everything related to the ocean. We were that kind of family.” Did Keaton ever surf? “I did, but I was bad so that was the end of that.”
Her love of the ocean remains a constant—she currently lives in Los Angeles, very close to the sea—and her style and roles prompted one social media influencer to coin the term coastal grandmother, defined as anyone who “loves Nancy Meyers movies [It’s Complicated, Something’s Gotta Give, The Holiday], coastal vibes, recipes and cooking, Ina Garten and cozy interiors.” Keaton has been cited as the poster girl for the trend.
She mentioned it on her own Instagram, although she looks baffled when the subject is brought up. “I don’t know what on earth that is,” she admits with a laugh. “I saw it and thought, OK . . . but I don’t really know what that means .I swear to God, though I wish I did. I didn’t adopt it. I’m just going to say thank you.”