Diane Lane is finally making it at 40.
Diane Lane made the cover of Time magazine at age 13 for her first movie, A Little Romance, but it has actually taken a couple of decades of dues paying for her to make it to the top. "I was the underdog for so long in this business. I'm still expecting it to all go away," says the 40-year-old star, who now easily alternates between headlining romantic comedies like Must Love Dogs and starring in sexy dramas like the upcoming Truth, Justice and the American Way, with Adrien Brody and Ben Affleck.
It was a cinematic perfect storm of good movies ‑- including The Perfect Storm ‑- that finally got Lane leading-lady status in Hollywood after 33 years in the business. Following critical acclaim for playing a Jewish woman who cheats on her husband with Viggo Mortensen in the low-budget 1999 indie A Walk on the Moon, she landed the ultimate suffering romantic role as the girl left behind on shore in The Perfect Storm.
"As an actor you're always worried about the next job, but being in a movie that everybody has seen really changed it for me," she says. And she's glad it didn't come earlier, when she was suffering through '80s TV movies and features like Lady Beware and Knight Moves. By the time she got good roles in her mid-30s, she says, she had "a diversity of experience under my belt. I'm glad I didn't get that when I was 20."
photo credit © Warner Brothers