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" &amp;quot;Did you ever have one of those days?&amp;quot; Diane Lane says with a cheerful sigh. She has just arrived at a favorite neighborhood Italian joint near her home in Los Angeles. &amp;quot;I couldn&amp;#039;t find my car keys, I got stuck in traffic, and a little home-improvement project we&amp;#039;re doing just turned into a major home-improvement project. I&amp;#039;m making my office into a serenity room, something like I imagine Oprah has. A place where you can go and pull the covers up over your head. But as one room gets upgraded, you have to do the next....&amp;quot; She slaps her forehead and giggles. &amp;quot;Sometimes you just want to wave the white flag!&amp;quot;  Not that she will. After nearly four decades in the spotlight, and four years of marriage and blending families with 40-year-old actor Josh Brolin (Diane has a 15-year-old daughter, Eleanor, with her former husband, actor Christopher Lambert; Josh has a son, Trevor, 20, and a daughter, Eden, 15, from his marriage to actress Alice Adair), Diane knows that resilience can be its own reward. &amp;quot;I think the secret to happiness is having a Teflon soul,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;Whatever comes your way, you either let it slide or you cook with it.&amp;quot;  For Diane, that&amp;#039;s been a recipe for huge success. Although she was hailed on the cover of Time as one of &amp;quot;Hollywood&amp;#039;s Whiz Kids&amp;quot; at 14 and Francis Ford Coppola cast her in The Outsiders a few years later, it wasn&amp;#039;t until her late 30s that Diane earned her highest praise (and an Oscar nod), for the 2002 film Unfaithful. That demanding, sensual role led to a string of crowd-pleasing performances in films like Under the Tuscan Sun and Must Love Dogs.  Now the actress, 43, is pairing up again with Unfaithful costar Richard Gere for Nights in Rodanthe, an old-fashioned romance based on the bittersweet novel of the same name by Nicholas Sparks. Diane plays a housewife who retreats to a friend&amp;#039;s bed-and-breakfast when her husband ditches her for a younger woman. As luck would have it, Gere \u2014 who plays a surgeon with life issues of his own \u2014 is the only guest at the inn. On a gorgeous beach. During a storm. Take a guess at what comes next. Once again, Diane starts to giggle, but this time mischievously. &amp;quot;What do you think happens?&amp;quot; she laughs. &amp;quot;I mean, come on! It&amp;#039;s Richard Gere!&amp;quot; What appealed to you about this movie? I liked the ability of the characters to grow and learn and have the muse come back into their lives. It&amp;#039;s easy to get stuck in a rut, but if someone else appreciates you or makes you question yourself, that&amp;#039;s an enlivening process. I like that they are willing to turn criticism into something positive. That&amp;#039;s what couples do for each other. In what ways have you grown over the years?So many. [Laughs] In recent years, everything in my life has mushroom-clouded \u2014 in a good way. My work life has grown, my relationship with Josh has grown, my responsibilities as a parent grew and changed. One day about a year and a half ago, I realized I can&amp;#039;t put these responsibilities in a jar and tend to them later, especially when it comes to time with my family. Life isn&amp;#039;t &amp;quot;when the kids get a little older&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;when Josh and I have the perfect quiet moment alone.&amp;quot; Right now is all we&amp;#039;ve got.  How did that revelation change you?  It quadrupled my sense of gratitude. As I take each baby step toward 60 and away from, uh, 20 [she lets out a big laugh], I&amp;#039;m realizing I have everything I need. I&amp;#039;m not talking about material possessions. To me, there&amp;#039;s no greater reward than being around people you care about and can be present with. To be at home doing the crossword puzzle cheek to cheek with my daughter \u2014 that&amp;#039;s a moment. Or to hear Josh going on brilliantly about some issue he saw in the paper. Or to realize I&amp;#039;m the person I&amp;#039;ve always wanted to become \u2014 or, should I say, the person I always knew I was.  I like that \u2014 &amp;quot;the person I always knew I was.&amp;quot; What can you say about that person? Oh, I guess it&amp;#039;s that I realize I am as smart as I thought I was. I do have some talent. I really do have conviction. I&amp;#039;m not a bad parent and partner, even if I make a thousand mistakes. Even when things aren&amp;#039;t going exactly where you thought they&amp;#039;d go, you&amp;#039;re getting somewhere just by dedicating yourself to what really matters. What did Helen Keller say? &amp;quot;True happiness...is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.&amp;quot; I&amp;#039;m full of those one-liners, but I certainly believe that.  Last time you spoke to REDBOOK, three years ago, you mentioned how hard it was to be away from the family for work. Is it still?  That&amp;#039;s another thing that changed. On this movie I took the family with me to North Carolina. I was asked to do three movies back-to-back, and it would have meant six months away. So I made a list of the pros and cons of being away and realized my bread is buttered in my kitchen, not on movie sets. &amp;quot;I can&amp;#039;t go,&amp;quot; I said. Now that the girls are 15, they&amp;#039;d rather I be away sometimes [big laugh], but that was all the more reason I needed to be home [bigger laugh]. So then the producers told me I could bring the family, and it was the best of both worlds.  What was it like being together in that gorgeous coastal setting?  Glorious. Absolutely glorious. When I was working, the girls were off kayaking and building sand castles, to the point where I was like, &amp;quot;Wait! I wanna play too!&amp;quot; But my hours weren&amp;#039;t awful, and after work we&amp;#039;d ride bikes and make popcorn and play Boggle. It felt very June Cleaver, and I loved it.  This is your third film with Richard Gere, after Unfaithful and The Cotton Club, which you made when you were 18. What&amp;#039;s it like working with someone you&amp;#039;ve known for so long? I feel like Richard is my witness. He&amp;#039;s seen me grow so much. Back then, everyone was marking me for success when all I really wanted was to be normal. I had all these walls of protection around me. Richard got that. He&amp;#039;d walk in and tell me what color my aura was or make a joke about something and it was like a cream pie in my face. He saw right through my walls, and that softened me up. Your daughter and stepdaughter are entering the heart of their teenage years. What&amp;#039;s it like watching them go from girls to women?  Scary! [Huge laugh] Humbling. Poignant. Challenging. Frustrating. Sometimes I think opposable thumbs were invented so teenage girls could use text messaging. And now boys are coming into the picture. I&amp;#039;ll get questions on that that just knock my socks off. I&amp;#039;ll pretend to be cool about it, but inside I&amp;#039;m...[she pretends to faint]. But, hey, bring it on! I can answer that question about sex and try not to sound insane! [Laughs] These are girls, you must remember, who are growing up watching Gossip Girl and movies like Sex and the City. My daughter saw Sex and the City and said, &amp;quot;Mom, don&amp;#039;t go. You can&amp;#039;t handle the sex.&amp;quot; How are you and Josh different as parents?  We&amp;#039;re a good team. When an issue comes up, we look at each other sometimes as if to say, &amp;quot;Do you want to take this one?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;No, you take it.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;No, you take it.&amp;quot; Both of us are very active parents, as far as making meals and being chauffeurs and just being there, though he tends to be a little more strict. I can roll with a lot of &amp;#039;tude from the young&amp;#039;uns. Josh, no way! He&amp;#039;s much more comfortable being unpopular than I am. I tend to be a pleaser. But I just read a book that completely shifted my behavior as a parent.  What&amp;#039;s the book?  It&amp;#039;s called Get Out of My Life, But First Could You Drive Me and Cheryl to the Mall? by Anthony E. Wolf. They should hand a copy to every mother when their daughters hit 12. The basic premise is, you do not need to justify your decisions as a parent to your children. Your job is to set the boundaries and keep your kids safe. So now, when my daughter says, &amp;quot;Why, Mom? It&amp;#039;s not fair!&amp;quot; my smile just gets bigger and more beatific, but I don&amp;#039;t budge and I don&amp;#039;t explain. I might say, &amp;quot;I know it&amp;#039;s not fair,&amp;quot; but that&amp;#039;s all. Otherwise, you watch your status and your usefulness as a parent disappear. There&amp;#039;s a voice inside children that knows right from wrong. I call it listening to your inner Jiminy Cricket. I tell my daughter, &amp;quot;If you&amp;#039;re thinking this is not the best idea, it probably isn&amp;#039;t.&amp;quot;  I notice you say &amp;quot;my daughter,&amp;quot; even though Josh&amp;#039;s daughter also lives with you. [Josh&amp;#039;s son is away at college.] Is it tricky navigating the role of mom in a blended family?  [She pauses, thinking] It gets complicated with merged families. I remember I was upset with the girls about something once and my daughter said to me \u2014 in front of my stepdaughter \u2014 &amp;quot;You take everything out on me!&amp;quot; My stepdaughter said, &amp;quot;Hey, I&amp;#039;m right here.&amp;quot; But it&amp;#039;s true \u2014 the way I understand stepparenting is you&amp;#039;re more the cheerleader than the disciplinarian with your stepchildren. Josh, as I said, has a different style. Sometimes I&amp;#039;m grateful when he&amp;#039;s strict with my daughter. Sometimes I&amp;#039;m like, &amp;quot;Ooh. Wow. I bet she&amp;#039;s gonna come talk to me later and be like...&amp;quot; [her lower lip quivers]. The great news is, the girls are good friends. I think growing up together is making them better people.   Do you ever resent that you grew up so fast?  Sometimes. But not until I had my daughter, because I got to see each level of development and I thought, Okay, this is what it means to be a child, to be protected, to have that coltish confidence coming in layer by layer. Because I was thrust into the grown-up world of business and acting, I felt like I had to have all this bluster and bravado. Who needs any of that when you&amp;#039;re just trying to be 10 or 11? When REDBOOK talked to you last, you&amp;#039;d been married a year. How&amp;#039;s that going? I love it. Marriage gets better with time. What have you learned? Oh, my God, so much. You don&amp;#039;t know how many flaws you have until you&amp;#039;ve lived with someone. It&amp;#039;s humbling just to stick it out. Love is saying you&amp;#039;re sorry. It&amp;#039;s the opposite of those cherub posters that say, &amp;quot;Love is never having to say you&amp;#039;re sorry.&amp;quot; Wrong! Love is three sorrys a day. If you haven&amp;#039;t met that quota, something&amp;#039;s wrong.  What do you love about Josh?  [She flashes a huge grin] It&amp;#039;s just invigorating to be around him. He is like the mayor in whatever situation he&amp;#039;s in; that&amp;#039;s his nickname on movie sets. He&amp;#039;s that affable and extroverted. He&amp;#039;s the Velcro of whatever show he&amp;#039;s working on, and he&amp;#039;s like that at home too. I&amp;#039;m more like the dormouse. When I&amp;#039;m working, I sneak in and I sneak home. I know my lines and I keep to myself. And I nap at lunch. Josh completes me because I&amp;#039;m so attracted to his otherness.  Is that how you two keep the magic alive?  Well, fancy that! [Diane fans herself dramatically] You&amp;#039;re going to get me into trouble! The day I answer that question, we&amp;#039;ll break up, so I can&amp;#039;t answer it. It&amp;#039;s funny, though \u2014 sometimes when you&amp;#039;re so busy, just getting time together is the biggest issue. I don&amp;#039;t know how Michelle and Barack Obama do it. They must just say, &amp;quot;Hold on until we get to the White House and I&amp;#039;ll see you in the Lincoln Bedroom, honey!&amp;quot; [Laughs] But if there&amp;#039;s any rule for this sort of thing, it&amp;#039;s a non-rule: Sometimes there&amp;#039;s no replacing chemistry. It sounds kinda cruel, but if you&amp;#039;re not attracted to each other \u2014 and we definitely are \u2014 it&amp;#039;s going to be an uphill battle.  While we&amp;#039;re on hot topics, what&amp;#039;s it like having Barbra Streisand as a stepmother-in-law?  Now you&amp;#039;re really getting me into trouble! [Laughs] No, Barbra is an amazing woman. I especially admire her gift for listening to people. If you go out for dinner with her, she&amp;#039;ll interview everyone in the restaurant. &amp;quot;Excuse me, sir. Where were you born? How many children do you have?&amp;quot; There&amp;#039;s a dearth of people with her level of curiosity. It&amp;#039;s a clue to how she became the powerhouse she is. It&amp;#039;s not about the work we do \u2014 it&amp;#039;s about who we are as people that makes all the difference.  That&amp;#039;s an interesting sentiment coming from someone who&amp;#039;s spent her whole life in show business.  It&amp;#039;s because I&amp;#039;ve worked for so long that I understand all this, and like I said, I&amp;#039;ve grown to understand that truth. We live our whole lives, and in our dying moment we have to ask ourselves, &amp;quot;What did we really care about? What impact did we make on the world?&amp;quot; The older I get, the more I realize the answers have to do with how we affect and love the people around us. Taking responsibility for our time with people we care about \u2014 that can&amp;#039;t wait. We have to ask ourselves now, &amp;quot;Am I following my heart? Am I awake to who I really am? Am I listening to my inner Jiminy Cricket?&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/life/interviews/a3956/diane-lane-interview/>