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"I loved acting, I started as a child and it is interesting because I didn't compare myself to others that were doing the same thing. I just felt that I needed to stay focused and stay out of trouble."

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Some actors begin as children or in their teens, and once they outgrow those roles, they're not quite sure what to do with themselves. That was never quite the case for Diane Lane. Although Lane's career has had its ups and downs, she has been the very definition of "aging gracefully," embracing her later roles with the same passion she carried with her on early films, and never giving anything less than her best effort to every single project.

"My relationship with aging is cozy. I'm not trying to play 29 and holding on with white knuckles, you know?"

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A Promising Start

Born January 22, 1965 in New York City, Diane Lane's mother was Colleen Leigh Farrington, a nightclub singer and Playboy (1957) centerfold, and her father was Burton Eugene Lane, a drama coach working in Manhattan. With the perfect combination of looks and acting ability in her parentage, there was no way Lane wouldn't be an actress. 

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Diane's interest in theater actually began with her grandfather's dramatic sermons. He had been a Pentecostal preacher, and, impressed by the way he took to the stage, Lane would begin her professional career at just six years old, joining the La MaMa Theatre Club, featuring in a production of Medea and touring the world with the troupe.

"When I was about seven, I started touring the globe as part of New York's La MaMa theater company - without my parents!"

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At twelve, Diane featured in a production of The Cherry Orchard with screen and stage legends Meryl Streep and Irene Worth, and at thirteen she would have her first taste of Hollywood, being cast in A Little Romance (1979) alongside Laurence Olivier. A long stretch of successful teenage roles would follow, she would play a young outlaw in Little Briches (1981), and feature as a centerpiece in The Outsiders (1983) and Rumble Fish (1983), both directed by Francis Ford Coppola and based on the young adult novels of SE Hinton. Both movies have their strengths but it was clear that Coppola's heart was in the underappreciated Rumble Fish, featuring Lane in an intoxicating fantasy sequence with Matt Dillon. These two films would go on to launch countless leading men, offering early roles for Tom Cruise, Nicolas Cage, Mickey Rourke, Emilio Estevez, Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell and Judd Nelson. Laurence Olivier had called Diane Lane the new Grace Kelly, and she would win over another big-name fan in Andy Warhol, who called her the undisputed female lead of "Hollywood's new rat pack."

Time weren't always easy for the young Diane's family around this time, however, and after her share of strife with her parents, she would declare independence and fly to New York to live with her friend Christopher Atkins. She would soon return to New York, finding that fifteen might be a little young for total independence, but this early venture set Diane's course as a bold risk-taker.

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"I was raised by free-spirited people, though my father gave me a very strong work ethic."

By now, the offers were simply rolling in, and Lane was in a position where she actually had to start turning down high-profile work to pursue the roles that most interested her. She would have to say no to both Splash (1984) and Risky Business (1983) in order to star in Walter Hill's Streets of Fire (1984). An urban fairy tale, Streets of Fire combined the 1950s "rumble" movie with dreamy cinematography, a thumping pop and rock soundtrack and incredible style to create a world all its own, like a rock-and-roll take on Star Wars or The Wizard of Oz. Lane starred as pop singer Ellen Aim, who is kidnaped by a gang leader played by Willem Dafoe, drawing Michael Pare's tough guy Tom Cody into confrontation.

The film has become a massive cult hit, but at the time it failed to meet commercial expectations. This was followed by The Cotton Club (1984), another movie about the music scene, this time with the focus being on jazz. The Cotton Club was also a commercial disappointment. These back to back failures prompted Lane to take some time off, reconciling with her mother and staying with family in Georgia.

Comeback Roles

Lane took on a few roles in the late 80s including The Big Town (1987), finally landing a true comeback part in Lonesome Dove (1989), earning an Emmy nomination for her work on the landmark miniseries. She was soon in talks to play Vivian Ward in Pretty Woman (1990), but when the filmmakers decided to move away from the darker material of the initial shooting script, they felt that Julia Roberts would be a better match for the more light-hearted version of the movie. This didn't slow Lane down, though. She featured in Chaplin (1992) and had a major hit in A Walk on the Moon (1999) with Viggo Mortensen and Anna Paquin. Since then, Lane has simply maintained a reputation as one of the better actresses working today, featuring in the DC Universe movies as Superman's adoptive mother Martha Kent in Man of Steel (2013), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), and Justice League (2017). In 2019 she co-starred with Matthew McConaughey in the thriller Serenity (2019), and helped to carry House of Cards as Annete Shepherd through the 2018 season.

Along the way she's had her share of Hollywood romances, marrying Christopher Lambert in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1988, resulting in the birth of daughter Eleanor Lambert. She would then marry No Country For Old Men (2007) and Goonies (1985) star Josh Brolin in 2004, divorcing in 2013.

Many actors and actresses who make their fame as teenagers find themselves having a hard time adapting to adult roles, but that's never been a major problem for Diane Lane. Even in her early work, Lane carried a maturity beyond her years, and that has only served to help her in her later work.

"All the lessons are in nature. You look at the way rocks are formed - the wind and the water hitting them, shaping them, making them what they are. Things take time, you know?"