From the Archives: Diane Lane

"My father was very wise, he still is very wise. He really put a computer chip in my head to have a strong work ethic. When you go on a movie set, you don't just sit there. You contribute. All the time. You're trying to set an example of attitude and energy. You don't lag and be deadweight. Ever. You're setting an example all the time -- keeping standards high, good morale, no bad apples." - Diane Lane

With each new film Diane Lane has in release -- whether it be Wild Bill, Daylight, Murder at 1600 or Jack -- there are always a handful of articles touting it as her comeback, the film that will finally allow her to reclaim her position in Hollywood's firmament. Lane has another film out, A Walk on the Moon, and once again the articles have started but this time her indubitably eloquent acting is showcased in a strong film. The hosannas may bear fruit after all.

At 34, Lane can be inevitably described as a veteran ("I just want to put my feet up and get my retirement check when I hear that," she laughs). At 14, she was touted by Time magazine as one of "Hollywood's Whiz Kids." That same year, she made her film debut opposite Laurence Olivier in George Roy Hill's A Little Romance. Before that, Lane had already been nearly around the world and back, performing with a theater troupe and competing in international theater festivals. Imagine being all of six years old and doing Medea in the original Greek. Worse yet, imagine being on the road at that age and having little parental supervision.

"I don't know how my mother let me go on those tours," Lane marvels. "I remember on tour -- you know, mom's away, dad's away -- [the troupe] was eating hash brownies, I didn't know they had hash in them," she smiles. "Things happen like that. When we were in Copenhagen, I saw A Clockwork Orange -- I must have been nine or something -- and that blew my fuse, I'm still furious. I just think innocence is worth protecting as long as possible because, believe me, it'll take care of itself." If she sounds like she's making a play for your sympathy by offering you her lost childhood, she's not. Lane tells it in her bruisingly wry, barbarously matter-of-fact manner. She is a strong, confident woman, brassy and balls-out, with a bristling intelligence.

Of course, to be young, female and smart in Hollywood 20 years ago was an anomaly. Lane notes that times have changed for today's crop of child actresses. "The Anna Paquins and Jena Malones and the new actresses that are of a tender age, they're much more empowered today with the workload, in terms of what they're performing, and in terms of being allowed to be intelligent. I was really swatted for coming off as a whippersnapper. I had to hide my intelligence from the adults because it was threatening or something, unattractive maybe."

At 16, she was Francis Ford Coppola's muse. Her appearances in The Outsiders and Rumble Fish made her the Teen Queen for the arthouse set. She went on to do other films but, before stardom could cement itself, she walked away. For three years. To have a normal life. When she returned, she came back better but the roles (including one as Paulette Goddard in Richard Attenborough's Chaplin) she undertook didn't rise to her level. Television, at least, provided her with more substantial fare -- Lonesome Dove, The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, Grace and Gloria, and as Blanche opposite Alec Baldwin and Jessica Lange in A Streetcar Named Desire. So would she agree that there aren't enough good roles for women? "I just think there are a lot of actresses and they're all in my way," she laughs. "What's strange," she observes, "is they keep hiring people who've never worked before when there are so many who are known that are great, tried and true."

Not that Lane has anything to complain about currently. Her role as Pearl Kantrowitz, the Jewish wife torn between her steadfast husband (Liev Schreiber) and a bohemian blouse salesman (Viggo Mortensen), in A Walk on the Moon is her best work to date. She fitted as much of herself into Pearl as she could. "Period pieces," she explains, "are different because you start to eliminate what's possible for women. The farther back in history you go, the less you know, the less you can do and '69 (the year the film is set) informed how much of me could go into Pearl." Lane feels the time Pearl lived in -- a tumultuous time of Chappaquidik, the moon landing, the Manson murders and Woodstock -- contributed to Pearl's decision to have an affair. "When she leaps and does this outrageous act of violating her promises and her honor, that's not a statement so much of a marriage as it is a statement of being overwhelmed by the times you're in."

While Pearl is dealing with her infidelity, she must also confront the emerging sexuality of her increasingly rebellious daughter (Anna Paquin), who seems destined to follow her mother's footsteps of marrying and conceiving too young. Lane, who has a five-year-old daughter Eleanor from her marriage to actor Christopher Lambert, has the weary knowingness of someone who's been through the nitty-gritty stage of motherhood. She also seems determined not to have her daughter subjected to the isolating, peripatetic lifestyle that made an adult of Lane before her childhood had even begun. Though there are times when Lane's acting career forces her to be in other places, she says, "I'm with [Eleanor] tenaciously every moment I can make it happen. Now she's at the age where she's in school. Whew! And they're saying that's more important than being with me and I'm saying, 'Oh. Really? How do I feel about that?' Well, it doesn't matter because the truant officers are going to come after me if I take her to the Catskills."

Another marriage is highly unlikely at this point in her life. "Do I seem like marriage material to you?" she counters when the question is posed. Work and motherhood are her priorities. Workwise, she's keeping the option alive on two projects: one is a romantic comedy triangle ("Fortunately, I'm too young to play it." She waits a beat. "Still."), the other is a movie on the life of Jean Seberg, the troubled American gamine who became a French icon in Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless.

Lane hopes Eleanor isn't harboring any plans to be an actress. "I would wish more for her," she laughs, then turns serious. "I would. This was thrust upon me at a very young age. I wish for her that she would do something that doesn't involve exploiting her beauty. I'd like for her to buck the system and say, 'Guess what? I'm a brain surgeon. Why are you laughing?' But she'll do what she wants."