New York Magazine - USA (2019-11-25)

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wetalkoftenoflongevityinactors,butit’s almost always

theresultofhardheadedness—TomCruisefindingnewways

todoTomCruisethings,evenasthetimeschange—ora slow

slideintosupportingwork.LauraDernhas,overtheyears,

becomea biggerandbiggerstar,butthereisn’t onerole,ortype

ofrole,orevena styleofperformanceonecanpointtoasthe

reasonforherdecades-longsuccess.Shedoesn’t eveninsist on

beingthestar. Shehasplayedlawyers,drugaddicts,documen-

tarians,andjingle-contestwinners.Shehasappearedinsmalldramasandwild

satires.ShewaschasedbydinosaursforStevenSpielbergandsacrificedherselffor

theRebelAllianceinStarWars:TheLastJedi.AndshehasbeenDavidLynch’sgo-to

actorformorethanthreedecades.

If anything,Dern’s variety of parts has grown wider in style, substance, and scale.

BorntotwoofAmerican film’s great character actors, Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd,

sheunderstoodearly on the value of versatility: At her recent Vulture Festival appear-

ance,Dernrecalled her father’s frustration early in his career at always having to play

theheavyafterkilling John Wayne in The Cowboys. “He really felt burdened by hav-

ingbeentypecast and pigeonholed,” she said.

Whetherornotit’s strategic, she has avoided this fate thanks to her enormous

range.She’s equally at ease with the slightest of gestures and glances—those blink-

and-you’ll-miss-itmoments that reveal worlds of complexity and pain—and the

theatrically broad strokes that acting gurus might shun as being too much. It seems

like it would take just a millimeter for her lips to curl into a conspiratorial smile,

twist into a disgusted grimace, or break into an existential shriek.

Even those shrieks have layers. Earlier this year, we saw her in the second season

of Big Little Lies playing Renata Klein, the high-strung workaholic whose season-one

tantrums felt alternately threatening and ridiculous but now seem cathartic and

necessary. This fall, we see her in two very different film roles. As Scarlett Johansson’s

divorce attorney in Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, she has one of the all-time

great introductory shots: Immaculately dressed and coiffed, she apologizes to her

client for looking “so schleppy.” Dern somehow conveys the character’s self-absorp-

tion while winking to us; we laugh at this person, but we also, weirdly, trust her.

Meanwhile, in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, she plays the March sisters’ mother in

a performance that’s generous and gentle but never passive.

Hers is a singular stardom, defined by an ability to portray all manner of full-

bodied characters while retaining her own essence. At Vulture Fest, Dern recalled

that a veteran actor had likened her to Charles Laughton early in her career. Laugh-

ton was known for transforming himself for different parts, but he always remained

Charles Laughton. In her case, she doesn’t so much transform as absorb: Each new

role adds to her persona, to the multitudes contained in her. All the while, Laura

Dern’s genius is that she somehow always remains Laura Dern. ■

Laura Dern

Doesn’t Need Our

Approval

But we gave her an honorary degree anyway.

By BILGE EBIRI

MA

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Photograph by Brigitte Lacombe