Hey Bobbi ... Laura Dern as she appears in the film Wild. Picture: AP Photo/Fox Searchlight Pictures Source: AP
LAURA Dern counts the 2014 Oscars among the greatest experiences of her life.
It wasn’t Dern’s career being celebrated — her Best Actress nomination came in 1992 for Rambling Rose and she has just been nominated for Best Supporting Actress — but that of her father, Bruce.
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Bruce had pulled off one of Hollywood’s most remarkable career revivals by being nominated, aged 77, for Best Actor for his film Nebraska.His daughter was his date for the big night.
“It was beautiful, oh my God!” Dern exclaims, lighting up at the memory.
The family business ... Bruce and Laura Dern at the Premiere Wild. Picture: Todd Williamson /Invision for Fox Searchlight/AP Source: Supplied
Adorable ... English actor Benedict Cumberbatch. Picture: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images/AFP Source: AFP
“The greatest experience you can have with your father is to have him at an awards (ceremony). Everybody’s in their outfits, everybody’s nervous ... And he’s sitting there going, ‘Kid! Can you believe it? I’m 77 years old, I’m doing what I love and they invited me to their dinner party’. I said, ‘Isn’t that great dad?’ He said, ‘Now go get me a Coke!’
“I’m like, ‘It’s the middle of the Academy Awards! You can’t leave!’ He goes, ‘You can do it, just leave and go get a Coke’. ‘I’m not leaving dad.’
“Benedict Cumberbatch happened to be sitting next to me — I don’t know him at all — and he was like (adopts super-polite English accent), ‘Oh does your father need a Coke? I’ll get him a Coke ...’
“So Benedict Cumberbatch went and got him a Coca-Cola, which I thought was so adorable. That Sherlock!”
As for how Dern’s mother, Chinatown actor Diane Ladd, is doing ... “If you want to know how my mum is, ask Reese and Cheryl because I just saw pictures of them with my mum. They’re all hanging out now,” she laughs.
Wild at heart ... Laura Dern, author Cheryl Strayed and Reese Witherspoon attend the LA premiere of Wild. Pictures: Invision for Fox Searchlight/AP Source: Supplied
The Reese she refers to is Reese Witherspoon, Dern’s co-star in the new movie Wild. Cheryl is Cheryl Strayed, the author of the best-selling book on which the film is based.
Dern, 47, has always had a sunshiny personality, but it appears Wild has pushed her into full solar flare mode. She says making the film and meeting Strayed (“You’re in her company and you’re like, ‘Have I ever wasted time not just being myself?’”) has taught her to be grateful.
The movie recounts the 1770km hike Strayed took to escape the downward spiral of drugs, sex and divorce that was sparked by her beloved mother’s death from cancer.
Reese Witherspoon plays Cheryl; Dern plays her mum, Bobbi.
Creative influence ... Dern with the father of her children, rocker Ben Harper, in 2008 Picture: AFP / Robyn Beck Source: AFP
Though Cheryl’s journey to come to grips with Bobbi’s passing is ultimately uplifting, Dern is twice bitten, thrice shy when it comes to the on-screen deaths of family members, so won’t be sharing the film with her children any time soon.
“I saw my father die in a movie when I was a kid and it really upset me,” Dern explains. “Then my mum in Chinatown, I watched her fall dead, too. I was not into it, it freaked me out.
“My kids might have a very different separation ability, but I didn’t.”
Now 47, Dern got into acting at a very young age, despite the stern opposition of her parents.
She reckons her own kids with rootsy rock star Ben Harper (the pair divorced in September 2013) are a 50-50 chance to enter either of the family businesses.
“They’re artists, for sure. Both of them love film and they’re also incredibly musical — their dad’s a great musician. So they’ve got it all,” she says of Ellery, 13, and Jaya, 10.
“Whether they choose that as a profession, I don’t know yet. My daughter the other day said, ‘Mum, you’re an actor, your parents are actors, daddy’s a musician, his parents are musicians ... couldn’t there have been like a vet, somewhere?’”
Dern breaks into laughter.
“I just love that she’s waiting for some family member to show up who does something different, not this movie and music stuff.”
Bruce and Diane weren’t wrong to worry — their daughter’s career has certainly had its ups and downs.
Five years after being nominated for that Oscar, she played the woman Ellen DeGeneres kissed in the “coming out” episode of her sitcom. Subsequently, Dern couldn’t get a job for 18 months.
Crossing over to the small screen ... Dern in a scene from HBO series Enlightened. Source: Supplied
“I’m lucky because I was raised by two people who stayed true to the craft of acting as their goal; redefining who they are as actors and pushing themselves into places that scared them. That was the focus,” says Dern.
“Not focused on other careers — keeping their eyes on their own papers, as our fourth-grade teacher told us. So I’d already seen how it goes.”
The tide has rolled back Dern’s way in recent years, with her HBO series Enlightened winning acclaim, last year’s young-adult movie The Fault in Our Stars proving a hit, the eviction drama 99 Homes garnering exceptional reviews from its Toronto Film Festival premiere and Wild scoring Oscar buzz.
“It is a very beautiful time,” Dern nods, adding that she’s following Witherspoon’s lead by moving into developing projects. Already on the boil is a comedy with Judd Apatow and another series for HBO.
Playing mum ... Dern as Bobbi and Reese Witherspoon as Cheryl in Wild. Picture: Twentieth Century Fox Source: Supplied
She didn’t even have to go on a gruelling 1770km walk to get to this point.
“When I first saw Wild,” Dern recalls, “Cheryl asked, ‘What did you think?’ I said, ‘I’m so happy, because I’ll know I’ll never have to do that hike!’
“If I go,” she adds, “I will take you with me, we will have duvets in our backpack, maybe a chef ... I love nature ... for a few hours at a time!”
WILD OPENS THURSDAY JANUARY 22
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