You'd be hard-pressed to find an actress in Hollywood with a more interesting and varied career than Laura Dern, a fact that perhaps is no better illustrated than in the star's 2017 slate, which includes a deeply perfect appearance in The Last Man on Earth, a role in David Lynch's Twin Peaks revival an upcoming collaboration with the relatively unknown Jennifer Fox, and of course, her brilliant turn on the infinitely watchable Big Little Lies.
Next up for Dern is Wilson, an unconventional dramedy based on the Daniel Clowes graphic novel of the same name, in which she gives a tragi-comic tour de force as the long-lost lover of the titular Wilson (Woody Harrelson). Oh, and there's also a little project called Star Wars: The Last Jedi on the horizon. Does that ring a bell?
This week, I had a chance to sit down with Dern to talk about her outstanding performance in Wilson, defying stereotypes, her sweet history with her costar, her thoughts on the Twin Peaks revival and reuniting with David Lynch, the possibility of a third season of Enlightened and of course, Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
COLLIDER: I found a lot of similarities in your character Pippi with the one you play in Citizen Ruth. What do you think it is about this kind of character? This sort of messy but really brave, I think, kind of character that’s so magnetic for you?
LAURA DERN: You know, the last six months or so in America have been such a rude awakening of a reminder about what culture really does say to women about their voice in the world. And just when we thought we’d come so far, I was reminded again what a privilege it is as an actor to play characters not who are trying to figure out how to use their voice, but don’t even know they’re entitled to one. And Ruth and Pippi are perfect examples of that, but on the show Big Little Lies that people are really enjoying, there’s sort of this idea that Renata is the opposite, or because she’s in this sort of life of privilege that’s so opposite Pippi, and it is, which is so great to be these extreme, different characters right now.
But at the same time, that is a show about women who don’t know they’re entitled to voice, whether it’s because of abuse or sexual assault or how other women project on them in the case of Renata, you know, it’s not the men who are doing it to my character, it’s the women who are saying, “Oh, you think you’re so great because you’re in a position of power, well then we’re gonna tell everybody you’re a bad mother.” And, you know, I witnessed other women do that about Hillary Clinton, you know, that idea that because someone’s brilliant or can run the show, she must not be sexual, she must not be romantic, she must not be tender or soft. So the more we slash through the stereotype, the more we get to be a whole, integrated self as women. As anyone, male or female, but as two women talking, that’s what I would say. So, you know, I just feel so lucky, and these characters are so delicious and I’m in love with them.
I think one of the things that I really responded to is that, obviously it's centered around Wilson, but he’s got these really incredibly dynamic women all around him. And I think that that’s really compelling and it defies expectations in certain ways, too. Everyone is a little bit deeper than you might assume them to be.
DERN: Yeah, and it’s, you know, it’s about honesty. And how uncomfortable the truth is for us. And, you know, on a pleasure-seeking level, it’s hilarious and irreverent and has beautiful characters and has poetry hidden in it in a very subversive way with Daniel’s writing and Craig [Johnson]’s direction, and Jon Brion’s score, which I mention because it’s just brilliant. So I just love the movie. It’s like being in the '70s and we’re seeing a Hal Ashby movie and it’s rare to have those, so I love it. But why I hope every American tunes in, and why I feel it’s required viewing right now, is I think it’s interesting for us to think about why when a man would get in our face and tell us the truth and ask us to get off a device and look in his eyes, that’s intolerable, and that’s uncomfortable, but we’ll buy a conman. That’s troubling. And that is a huge component to what’s happening in our country right now, that like, we’re so fractured that we’d rather believe a lie and hang our hope on it than have someone go, “We’re screwed, we gotta figure out how to do this differently.”
Whether it’s with a lover or a politician, we can run from the truth, and even my character says that to him, you know, “You saw everything, you saw my whole mess, and you never went away, and that was too hard for me.” Because she didn’t even know how to trust that, because everybody else in her life discarded her. And here’s somebody going, “I’m not going anywhere, you’re a disaster, I love you.” And that’s just beautiful, and so I pray as Americans, that we really take to heart what’s wrong with a culture when it’s like, ugh, these people are such misanthropes, they’re so misguided. But it’s like, you know, it’s cool to stir up lies and project bullying onto other people and say I’m going to represent the common man. You know, businessmen have never represented the common man. Businessmen represent bigger businessmen, that’s what most politicians do. And we go, “They’re gonna really hear me this time.” So I think it’s, I really do think it’s a really important film, you know, done beautifully irreverently.
Absolutely. I also think Woody’s performance is so good. I want to see you guys in other stuff, by the way. I would love to see you guys in other stuff.
DERN: Please tell him to! We are obsessed, it’s all we want to do.
Your chemistry is insane.
DERN: We love each other so much and we had the time of our lives, so that’s all we’re trying to figure out now, is what we can do together again.
Was it sort of insta-chemistry or did you guys spend time together to prepare? What was that experience like?
DERN: Yeah, we, actually, we did an interview earlier and he was saying like, “I don’t know that it would’ve ever been the same if this weren’t the case.” But twenty years ago, we did a play together, and we loved each other. I mean, it was instant bliss, and I think we really found a fellow soulmate and it was really like a deep connection, and so as life has taken us on different journeys, we haven’t spent time together so in a way we had that same thing of like, Pippi and Wilson having each other again, but now I think we’re locked in for good. I just, I couldn’t adore someone more. He’s amazing.
I do have to ask you about Twin Peaks because David Lynch is like the most important person to me in the world. So what was it like to be able to just like – jump back into the fray with him?
DERN: I mean, I’m not allowed to say anything except to say if that’s your connection to David, [whispers] you’re in for the time of your life. I’m freaking out!
It’s so exciting.
DERN: I feel like I woke up every day in a dream going, “What is he doing now? I can’t believe this is happening.” And I mean, I have to say also, like, Big Little Lies, everybody’s into, "oh my god, you’re in Star Wars, the next Star Wars, no one is talked more than about Twin Peaks." And culturally, that excites me too, meeting all these fourteen to twenty-three year olds who are saying, “Oh my god, we’re binge-watching Twin Peaks to get ready for Twin Peaks because our parents were obsessed we never knew it!” And so my son’s friends are calling me going, “What is this?” Because they haven’t seen David Lynch’s movies yet. They’re like, “This is the greatest! This was on twenty years ago? This was on network television? That’s insane!”
That is crazy to think about, right?
DERN: It’s crazy. And it’s crazier. And I feel like every time I come back to him, and he’s truly my best male friend, like, there’s no one, my best friend as a man, to have him since I was sixteen, I love him so much. But then to work with him, it’s literally like he grabs me up, doesn’t really ask permission, kind of shakes me and hurls me off the cliff, and I’m just like, I’m in it. I have no options. And it’s just everything you dream of as an actor. Which also, Jean Marc Vallee is the only person I could say this about as well, but David over and over again, to have a director in your life that every time goes, “Now you’re gonna be this thing that is totally unrelatable to anybody you are and anything you’ve done for me before, now go be her.” That’s like, it’s the luckiest gift in the world.
Yeah, I’m so excited to see it. And I’m also holding out, like, a tiny bit of hope that something will happen with Enlightened and we’ll see that on Netflix in a few years. I’m just sort of speaking it into existence.
DERN: Write it out! Put it out there! Because you’re not the only one. Lately, I mean, since the election, Mike [White] and I have started talking about how much – we need Amy Jellicoe now. I mean, Amy with a Trump presidency! Oh my god! It’s a power of Twitter! I mean, I don’t know if you even remember, social media was still like sort of just beginning, and so I use it and there was this episode where I try to get on it for the first time and I don’t even know how to do it and I just write, “My first twit.” It made me laugh so much. But now it would be, oh my god. I mean, she would effect so much change and fuck everything up simultaneously. It would be great to see her back.
Never say never, with all the streaming possibilities!
DERN: Never say never! I know!
Also congrats to you and Woody both being in the Star Wars club all of a sudden. That’s so strange!
DERN: Isn’t that funny? I forgot to say this to Woody, but it just made me laugh because they were like, “Can you say anything about your characters?” And so the one thing that came to mind with that one journalist asking me, I was like, what if someone had seen Wilson and was like, “You know what? Wilson and Pippi should go to space.” And we’re actually playing these characters in Star Wars. [laughs] That would be the ultimate.
I would love to hear anything you have to say about Rian Johnson, but I know you can’t say anything about the film.
DERN: I worship him.
Isn’t he the greatest? Everything he’s done is incredible.
DERN: Oh, he’s the guy. He’s the guy to watch. To me, I’ve never seen anything like it. Comfort on an enormous movie, improvisation, “Try that, try that!” There’s a lot of people weighing in on creating character and looks, and things are so iconic, and sets, and he’s still in the world of character. “How do you feel? What do you think? How do you want it?” I mean, to everybody. But he’s just amazing, and he’ll do radically beautiful things, and I also feel like he’s one of the people I’ll work with again and again, because we just loved each other. We had dinner recently and he was telling me an idea that was just so crazy and indie and I just love that’s he’s a radical.
Yeah, he very much has that indie sensibility. I’m glad to hear it from you.
DERN: Oh, I think he’ll keep himself in both worlds for his whole career, very smartly.
Wilson opens in limited release on March 24th.
