Gorgeous At Any Age: Diane Lane

Diane Lane

Red-Hot at 43

When Diane Lane, star of some of the steamiest love scenes on film (remember her racy stairwell scene with Olivier Martinez in Unfaithful?), tells me she doesn’t want to do them anymore, I tell her that would be a crime against womanhood. That’s when she sweetly reminds me that in real life she can have all the sex she ever wants. I love this woman! Lane has certainly had all the career any actress could ever want. At just 12 years old, Lane was sharing the stage with Meryl Streep. At 13 she made her film debut opposite Sir Laurence Olivier, and at 14 she landed the cover of Time magazine, which declared her one of “Hollywood’s Whiz Kids.”

Well, this “kid” is now 43 with more than 35 films under her belt, plus assorted Oscar and Golden Globe nominations. She’s mother to a teenage daughter from her first marriage, and stepmom to two children from her second, in 2004, to actor Josh Brolin. Her latest film, Nights in Rodanthe, with longtime costar Richard Gere, opens this month. It’s a passion-filled romance (and a tribute to my soft spot, the lost art of letter writing).

We recently met up in a Los Angeles restaurant for mushroom soup and iced teas and had a heart-to-heart about the confidence women gain in their forties, what it’s like to fall in love again and why she would never stuff her bra.

GLAMOUR: How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were? I feel like I’m stuck at your daughter’s age—14.

DIANE LANE: I think we’re all stuck there. It’s a great thing, the freedom to not know it all.

GLAMOUR: You married young the first time [to actor Christopher Lambert].

DIANE LANE: Twenty-three. I met him at 19. I gave him my twenties; I didn’t know what else to do with them.

GLAMOUR: You have teenage daughters. Would you tell them to postpone marriage until after a career?

DIANE LANE: That’s hard to say…. I bought into the myth that you are not complete without romantic love, without a mate. And it can really distract you from your goals. But sometimes you have to take a leap.

GLAMOUR: When did you feel like you knew who the real you was?

DIANE LANE: Probably the end of my thirties. That rocket launcher of youth had passed, and I was on my own real engine power.

GLAMOUR: How much do you value fortysomething experience over twentysomething adventure?

DIANE LANE: I wouldn’t go back to being 20. Because here’s the thing…there is something wonderful about coming to terms with time—that it is finite. You want to have as much joy in your life as possible, and you take responsibility for your own joy.

GLAMOUR: What is your anti-aging secret?

DIANE LANE: It’s become sleep. It used to be other things, but sleep is the great equalizer.

GLAMOUR: In Nights in Rodanthe, you play a newly separated woman.

DIANE LANE: Yes, my husband cheats on me and leaves me for another woman.

GLAMOUR: It’s still considered very immoral to be unfaithful. Infidelity seems to be a deal breaker for most marriages.

DIANE LANE: Well, in my book of rules it is. I don’t mind going on record to say that.

GLAMOUR: You fall in love with Richard Gere’s character and write love letters to each other. No one does that anymore. Do you have a box of old letters?

DIANE LANE: I do. But they are e-mails I printed.

GLAMOUR: Well, e-mail is a great way to get back to writing love letters.

DIANE LANE: Yes, but I don’t know how people ever meet online. I mean, I love the idea. But I wonder if Josh and I would have gotten together if we had filled out one of those questionnaires about your personality.

GLAMOUR: I think people lie on them a bit.

DIANE LANE: But see that’s the thing. I wouldn’t lie. I would never stuff my bra because it’s going to come off and the truth is going to be revealed. No, no, no. I don’t like that padding. [Laughs.] I try to be completely—if not brutally—honest.

GLAMOUR: Is it harder to find love a second time around?

DIANE LANE: No. But I think it has to find you. [After my divorce] I was very content to have long-distance relationships. You know, something to be excited about, but something that wasn’t so convenient.

GLAMOUR: When you first met Josh again after having met once years before, did you think it was different?

DIANE LANE: I didn’t—I was asleep. I thought, nice to meet you again, have a nice evening. My friend with me that night said, “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty.”

GLAMOUR: So it wasn’t an instant feeling?

DIANE LANE: It was organic…but I just sort of needed a nudge.

GLAMOUR: Does that only happen in the movies, the fireworks?

DIANE LANE: No, but [they] can be a distraction, or a warning—you’re in love with being in love. It’s in your mind and in your imagination.

GLAMOUR: Do you believe in love at first sight?

DIANE LANE: I’m pretty limited in my experiences.

GLAMOUR: In love at first sight? Or just love?

DIANE LANE: Just period. [Laughs.] I would say chemistry is very powerful. You have to fight to keep it, but if you don’t have it, you can’t manufacture it.

GLAMOUR: Every woman I know fantasized about the affair in Unfaithful. Was it different doing sex scenes in your late thirties than it was in your twenties?

DIANE LANE: I don’t know how to measure those things. I am a puritanical-librarian type.

GLAMOUR: You are?

DIANE LANE: I am. It makes me very uncomfortable…. I tell my daughters, “That’s why they call it work, because it’s not what you’d prefer to do with your free time….” I don’t want any more sex scenes on-screen. I’m done.

GLAMOUR: What? You can’t be done!

DIANE LANE: In real life I can have all I want.

GLAMOUR: But you’re a role model to so many fortysomething women. I’m totally against you stopping. You should be filming more hot sex scenes.

DIANE LANE: [Laughs.] That’s adorable. I will take that under consideration.