“Storytelling sure is a fun way to make a living,” jokes screen legend Diane Lane from her New York home over video call.  It’s a self-effacing way to describe her career which began on stage at 6 years old, and would quickly progress to working alongside Meryl Streep, Laurence Olivier, and collaborating three times with The Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola, all before she was 20. Lane would later receive recognition from the Academy when she was nominated for an Oscar for her intricate role as an adulterous housewife in Unfaithful. Now, aged 60, she’s being tipped for another. 

The performance in question is her latest in the political thriller Anniversary, from Corpus Christi director Jan Komasa. Lane plays Ellen in the film, the matriarch of the close-knit Taylor family and a professor of politics at a prestigious university (Lane attended lectures in political science as part of her preparation for the role). The film explores the dangers of nefarious political forces with timely nods to the creeping rise of fascism and totalitarianism the world faces now. 

 “It’s a scary time,” Lane begins, “and Anniversary is a wonderful, refreshing opportunity to [reflect] the zeitgeist. You never know how you’re going to be able to pull that off.” Work on the film began in 2021 when President Donald Trump had just left office. Thanks to pandemic stop-starts and the Writers Guild of America strike, it’s taken four years to complete. In that time, Joe Biden has been and gone—President Trump is once again in office. While there are no overt references to any real-life political parties in the film, there are certainly subversive ones.

 “I guess we had to wait for the reality to catch up to the fictitious in terms of what the story deals with,” Lane says. “One of the things that I thought was genius about the screenplay is that it never addresses any political party. You have conservative versus progressive in there and its delineations, but there is a definite sense that this could happen anywhere...our film certainly provokes many thoughts, feelings and conversations.”

 Indeed, the film warns about the danger of those who deliver threatening messages with politeness and smiles, making their words somehow feel more palatable. “I was such a fan of Jan Komasa in terms of the way he knows how to grab the audience by the viscera and get into the mind and heart of the scariest person in the room who may not appear scary at all,” Lane explains. 

 In the film, Ellen’s son, Josh (Dylan O’Brien) brings home new girlfriend Liz (Phoebe Dynevor) who was once taught by Ellen at university. While mild-mannered on the outside, Liz is revealed to have once written a thesis which Ellen describes to her husband Paul (Kyle Chandler) as being “full of radical, anti-democratic sentiments.” Liz argues for a single party system called The Change, which eventually takes a hold: free speech is suppressed, academics find themselves sparring in continual culture war battles and Orwellian 1984-style surveillance systems rule. Authorities ensure nobody steps out of line.

 “I mean that’s the wonderful slash horrible thing about being a human, is that our hearts and minds are always up for grabs,” Lane emotes, as she explores how ordinary families like the Taylors can be torn apart by adversarial political forces. “I watched Richard Nixon go up in the helicopter, and President Ford getting sworn in,” Lane continues, recalling how she felt as a child watching Nixon’s acrimonious resignation in 1974 and the momentary “hope” that followed when Ford arrived. “It was a very bonding time. We had just three channels and everybody agreed on what constituted news,” she remembers, adding that today, things are far more complicated.

 “But I do think that history is repetitious too,” she offers, sagely. “We never unlive our past. Generations conveniently forget what’s just behind their line of vision. We’re looking forward, but we tend to forget from whence we came in terms of what’s so valuable about things such as democracy. I didn’t think I would be seeing this in my lifespan, but I’m grateful to not be my younger self dealing with it. I’m able to take strength from the people who have gone before and learn from history in terms of what strengthens the spirit and the soul, taking comfort where one can, and keeping things as human as possible in this potentially dehumanizing era.”

With the world feeling more confrontational than ever, Lane, who is dressed in an autumnal knitted poncho and checked shirt, escapes by “taking comfort in small things,” which for her can include the rituals of “reading a book, or being humbled by nature, seasons and trees.” Lane was an early advocate of taking time out of work for better mental health long before it was fashionable to do so.“It was kind of anomalous to talk about that back then when I was doing it,” she smiles, saying she would spend time away from work to “get grounded” with her family—and that she still does this today. “Sometimes you have these years where you just survive because there’s so much [work] output. I’m grateful that Anniversary took a while to come out because I needed the strength to return to me from the draining of the output. You can’t always be in output mode.”

Lane, who is gregarious and chatty, thoughtful and wise, gets her strength from “working with great people on great projects—something she has done since her infancy. Quite uniquely, Lane was sent away by her parents—Burt Lane, an acting coach, and Colleen Farrington, a singer and model—to act in Ellen Stewart’s traveling theatre troupe—La MaMa—when she was just 7 years old. “I started out ridiculously young,” Lane laughs, as she recounts wild stories of traveling the world with the colorful group. It was an environment in which she thrived. “I was still very much a child in an adult world for a long time, but Ellen made sure that I was cared for and loved, and I was adopted like a family member into this tribe of artistry that was bringing important messages to people who were interested to see it. We got into some pretty amazing theatre festivals: it was just a very different time.”

When she returned home, she soon transitioned into theatre, appearing in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard in New York, aged 12, alongside a young Meryl Streep. Two years later, she starred alongside one of the greatest actors of the 20th century—Laurence Olivier—in her film debut, A Little Romance. She has many memories of Olivier on set, who deemed her “the next Grace Kelly” at the time. “He was amazing because he was so interested in downplaying the fact he was an icon,” she recalls. “He worked on it. He insisted on everybody paying at dinner when we would have these large 20-person meals as a film company. We all would pay equally towards the bill and it would become a 20-minute experience to pay this bill! That was very telling about him, I think. He never forgot his roots.”

 Lane also remembers how “Lord Larry,” as the cast and crew called him (“we would sometimes jokingly refer to him as this because of course he was the Lord at that point, knighted twice”) spent a long time chatting to her father for over an hour at a hotel in Verona one night, answering question after question gladly. What they both later realized was that Olivier was completing a rehearsal of sorts. “He was practicing for a New York Times interview,” Lane laughs. “My father didn’t realize at the time but did after the interview came out...Lawrence was sort of getting his juices up to do one of these lengthy interviews and I guess maybe he was a little out of practice. He was 72 then and this was a sort of retrospective. We got all the outtakes!” 

 The film with Olivier may have put her on the map, but it was a lot of pressure for a youngster to deal with. “As any teenager, I was just so afraid of being embarrassed: I hadn’t seen it until I went to the premiere. All these movie stars were there, and I was just overwhelmed.” Weeks prior, she had even graced the cover of Time magazine under the heading of “Hollywood’s Whiz Kid.” “I felt like I had been plucked out of I-don’t-even-know-what-reality-was and taken into a realm of unreality, which is to say, I felt I had done nothing to earn that cover except being in a movie that hadn’t come out yet.” Lane describes it as an “out-of-body experience.” “I felt embarrassed because I thought, ‘Where’s my merit to be here?! Am I going to live up to this?!’ I’m still feeling the uncomfortableness of it! I still feel like when people bring it up, they’re saying ‘Why you?’ It makes me sweaty even now, like I’m 14 years old again.”

Lane didn’t feel like she was a part of the “film industry” at this time, but more like “something unfathomable,” she explains. “I was like a flea catching a ride on a dog. When you’re 14 years old, you’re just so afraid of being embarrassed by what you don’t know.”

 After her work with Olivier though, she gained even more recognition, not least from legendary The Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola, who cast her in three films over the next few years—The Outsiders—with the likes of Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze, and Rob Lowe who were all still relative unknowns at the time—Rumble Fish and The Cotton Club. Lane describes it as a “wonderful experience” working with the auteur, and describes him as a “positive force,” an “optimist” and “a man of resonance.”

 “Francis creates not just an end result, but an experience for those who are participating in the making with him,” she shares. “Whether that’s just a high standard of humanity in terms of the experience of working with him as a man, a human and an artist.” Lane also worked with Coppola’s late wife, Eleanor, on her 2016 directorial debut, Paris Can Wait. “I was honored to see both sides in that way,” she recalls of working with them both. Eleanor died in 2024; Lane thinks her impact on Francis is still profound. “For him to have a mate like Eleanor made it possible for him to encompass as much as he has and will continue to,” she says. “Just because people leave this earth doesn’t mean they stop impacting us. I know that Eleanor holds such a place in his heart. She’s still with him; it’s very touching.”

 Lane also describes their daughter, renowned director Sofia, as “a force.” The pair worked together on Rumble Fish, where they played sisters. “I think we have a lot more to look forward to from her,” she adds, lamenting what a positive time it is now for women in the arts. She thinks roles for women are better, discussing her recent acclaimed performances in Feud and A Man in Full. “The women that have gone before me that I admire, I’m just so grateful that they’re there. And to be a part of the fabric of paying forward to the coming generations, it’s lovely.”

 Lane is now enjoying seeing “female characters with more humor and wisdom about the female experience” and is pleased some taboos with more mature females on screen are being lifted. “The whole menopause thing is kind of fascinating because it was such a verboten topic,” she explains. “It’s such a part of the female empowerment experience: why would we want to minimize it in any way? Sure, it’s a transition that’s tricky, but at the same time, the other side is beautiful and strong and you’re finally free from a lot of parentheses and controlling frameworks. There’s no reason to fear [getting older], no reason to be silent about it, no reason to keep it in the dark. It’s part of being human.”

 Alongside the multitudinous roles she’s played, Lane is now taking time to celebrate the people she has sparred with on stage and screen, admitting that she still “gets a little giddy” when she thinks about who she’s worked with over the years. It’s an impressive list of projects, with Lane appearing in everything from Nights in Rodanthe, Men of Steal, and Inside Out to Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth on stage. Lane even trod the boards in The Cherry Orchard once more, this time as the play’s lead. There are dozens more roles to Lane’s name on one of the most extensive CVs in Hollywood. 

“Getting to work with people who have touched me—as an audience of their work—is still the best part of my job, I think...you’d better come prepared to tango with these pros! It keeps me inspired; being a fan of the craft helps.” Helen Mirren—who she appeared with in Trumbo briefly —is still on her wish list of people to work with more. “She’s a power and she has a power that is uniquely her own and she knows it and she wields it. We didn’t have a scene together in Trumbo and we were so rueful about it...one day!” 

Lane returns to her love of storytelling, which she says is more vital than ever for the human experience. “Timely storytelling can make people feel seen, less alone, less crazy,” she imparts. “An important part of the arts is its relation to humanity…and we must never forget that.”

Now entering her sixth decade in the film and theatre industry, Lane concludes by saying she has absolutely no plans to slow down. “I’m for hire now!” she smiles, ready to get into the ring once more.

Photographed by Gavin Bond

Styled by Anna Katsanis

Written by Elizabeth Aubrey

Hair: Peter Gray

Makeup: Yumi Nori

Nails: Joey Ngooi

Flaunt Film: Mynxii White

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