Hollywood, the gender pay gap and political issues such
as gun violence. Has anyone ever tried to rein her in?
“Politically, no. In relationships ...” she says, arching an
eyebrow before quickly clarifying: “That’s sort of a joke.”
Dern married Harper in 2005, but they divorced after
two children and eight years. Before that, in her thirties,
she was engaged to the bad-boy actor Billy Bob Thornton,
but when she was away filming he ran off and married
Angelina Jolie and allegedly never spoke to Dern again.
“Others may say that you left our girl and married
someone else,” Thornton told The Guardian in 2001. “But
it made me happy and somebody else happy. I’m sorry it
caused pain.” Two years later he and Jolie divorced.
Dern doesn’t publicly discuss her romances, but I’m
interested too in her platonic loves. She
ended her Oscars speech with praise for
her friends: “You lift me up every day.”
Her female friendships are “everything”,
she says. “I’ve been blessed to find
a handful of women that really have
become my sisters. I feel so lucky to have
sisters because I didn’t have siblings, so it
really means more than I can describe.”
Five years before Dern was born her
parents had another daughter, Diane,
who drowned as a toddler. My parents
suffered a comparable tragedy and later
divorced after having a second “only”
daughter named Laura, so I’m moved by Dern’s use of
“sister”. How has that sibling loss shaped her? “Well,
you know, like me, that a longing for some sibling is
innate in us, right? Even just being raised as only chil-
dren, but also with a larger story, I think there is an
interest in sharing a family story, in friends who are like
sisters or brothers to us because they know our family
not just because they’re great girlfriends.”
One treasured “sister” is Courteney Cox. Dern has
posted photos of the pair visiting Kensington Palace and
celebrating Independence Day together. They met on
a flight 25 years ago when Cox was at the height of her
Friends fame. “We laughed the whole ride. We just
started laughing hysterically about our eccentricities, our
fears, our anxieties,” Dern recalls, smiling. “That kind offriend where you meet someone and you tell them
everything. And we’ve never been apart since.”
Big Little Lies, based on the 2014 novel by Liane Mori-
arty, depicted solid friendships hauling women through
the worst of life’s slings and arrows. The second series
came out in 2019, reportedly earning Witherspoon and
Kidman about $1 million an episode. Will we ever enjoy
more of Renata’s acidic one-liners — “Do not f *** with
my daughter’s birthday” — in a possible third series?
“I have some friends, being the entire cast of Big Little Lies,
who all love each other so much and love working
together like nothing else, so I think you would have a very
intrigued group of women,” Dern says, slightly teetering
into girl-power platitude territory.
Talk turns to ageing. So far, Dern is
delighted with her fifties. “I feel very
vital, very healthy. I feel, oddly, far more
energised, athletic, connected to myself,
far more excited about acting than ever
before. It’s just a really alive time.”
Her thirties were the difficult decade.
“The world has told you you’re a woman
now and you’re supposed to be a
grown-up, and it’s the introduction of
a biological clock. It’s the introduction of
culture telling you you’re supposed to
find him, her, some kind of partnership,”
she says, talking fast and on a roll.
“It’s your belief that you’re supposed to already be at a
finish line [and] you don’t even know where the race
starts, or that there is one and you’re racing against your-
self, so it’s ridiculous. I found it brutal.”
After 40 minutes the line is lost. I’m told Dern’s
laptop has died. She calls back on a mobile for a quick
goodbye, sounding as if she is already on the move.
I picture her heading into the California sunshine,
power dressed as Renata Klein, ready to conquer
another day. ■The Mercedes-Benz x Proenza Schouler collection
is available exclusively at proenzaschouler.com and
Selfridges; prices start at £335 for accessories
and £365 for ready-to-wear‘I’ve been
blessed to find
a handful of
women that
really have
become my
sisters’
Right Dern with Richard Attenborough and Sam
Neill in Jurassic Park, 1993. Below, from left
With Scarlett Johansson in Marriage Story; in
Big Little Lies with Shailene Woodley, Zoë
Kravitz, Reese Witherspoon and Nicole KidmanGetty Images, Universal, ©Wilson Webb/Netflix, HBO
The Sunday Times Style • 63