Laura Dern on Leading the Resistance, On-Screen and Off

Years ago, the famously elusive David Lynch offered his longtime collaborator Laura Dern a prescient piece of advice: “Your job is to tell them nothing.” Little did she know at 17 just how much secrecy and speculation would surround some of her future roles—from resistance leader Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, to the darkly mysterious Diane in Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return to the endearingly prickly Renata Klein in HBO’s beloved Big Little Lies, which just confirmed that its highly anticipated second season is a go.

Thankfully, Dern is at last speaking up about how much these characters mean to her—and to the next generation of women in Hollywood. She opened up to Dennis Lim, director of programming at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, on Thursday evening, during an event at which Lim declared December 14 “Laura Dern Day.” (Mark your calendar for next year.)

As Admiral Holdo, Dern relished playing “a complicated, powerful woman in a position of power—with a gray area,” as she told Lim. On Friday morning, Dern explained to Vanity Fair that she and director Rian Johnson saw the character as a woman embracing her femininity and elegance—violet hair and all—while leading on her own terms. “I like that in the Star Wars world it’s rather subtle, but you’re seeing a woman as a leader who’s not trying to lead as a man," she told V.F.

For evidence of the gender politics at play, Dern pointed to one of the first lines spoken about her character: “Is that Admiral Holdo?” The character's male peers seem to have a palpable skepticism about her, mostly because of how Holdo presents herself—as a jewelry-wearing, stylishly imposing woman.

As Dern sees it, “[Rian is] saying something that’s been a true challenge in feminism. Are we going to lead and be who we are as women in our femininity? Or are we going to dress up in a boy’s clothes to do the boy’s job? I think we’re waking up to what we want feminism to look like.”

Dern, who fell in love with Star Wars when she was seven years old, said she felt privileged to work alongside one of the original stars of its galaxy, the late Carrie Fisher, with whom she shares a particularly poignant scene near the end of the film. “To let go of the veil and try to be your authentic self—there’s no greater teacher than Carrie,” she told Lim. Since the 70s, Dern noted, the actress had “played complicated, brazen, sassy . . . superheros. She leads with an unapologetic self. The minute Carrie Fisher enters the room, she requires that of all of you and changes the space that you’re in.”

While Dern is no stranger to playing nuanced characters with ferocity and bite, Hollywood is finally catching up to her particularly bold sensibility—and, more importantly, creating a greater number of such roles. Speaking to V.F., Dern recalled that when she first started acting, her father—Academy Award-nominated actor Bruce Dern—encouraged her to play such parts, but warned her about the innate challenges that would face a “young ingenue.” She recalled him saying, “If you love this and want to do this for a lifetime, when you hit your mid 40s, you’ll start getting the parts you’ve been training for. In the second half of . . . life, you’ll start getting to be the actress you want to be.”

After years of banging on Hollywood’s door for more dynamic opportunities, Dern feels as if the ground beneath her and her fellow female collaborators is finally shifting for good—in large part because women are increasingly writing the roles and producing the projects themselves. “I speak to Reese [Witherspoon] and Nicole [Kidman], and I have a group of beautiful besties that includes Naomi Watts and Julianne Moore and my beautiful dear friend who I’ve known forever, Meg Ryan, who’s been iconic in many aspects of her career, but who is also finding her incredible eye as a filmmaker,” she told V.F. “I just feel like we are not being defined by the old story, which was, frankly, the story of the Olympian. She’s got a career until she’s 27, and then what is she gonna do? The story of the professional athlete has always fascinated me, and is not dissimilar from being an actress.”

In addition to touching on her most notable roles in projects including Blue Velvet and Enlightened, Dern and Lim also discussed her active involvement in an industrywide commission to address sexual harassment and workplace safety in the wake of the allegations against _Harvey Weinstein. The commission was first announced by Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy at Elle's Women in Hollywood Event in October, and it's set to launch in 2018.

Dern shared more details Friday, specifically noting the discrepancy of “when you’re watching a movie and at the end of it, you see this logo that says, ‘No animal was harmed during the making of this film,’ and it says nothing of human beings.”

She continued: “To remove the abuse-of-power piece, it seems that the best choice is having an outside commission of experts, including lawyers, psychologists, social workers, and advisers in the area of the expertise to figure out how to move forward after someone has experienced abuse of power. . . . Hopefully, it’s something that grows on a widespread scale.”

Dern, who also serves on the board of governors of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, also encourages people across the arts and media industries to take part in the initiative once it officially takes off. “I’m excited to say, if you’re an actress or a publicist or whatever your job is, get on that database, look for who’s available, and speak to them.”

As one of her busiest years yet winds down, Dern is already looking forward to her next role in her friend Noah Baumbach’s new project, which she will begin working on in a few weeks alongside Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson. This midpoint in her career has proved more fulfilling than any other, Dern told V.F. “I’ve never wanted to act so much. I can’t get enough. I feel trusting and trusted more in the collaboration stage than ever. And that’s a delicious feeling. Maybe because I also have some repeat hires,” she said with a laugh. “That’s a beautiful thing, to be with people who put their trust in you to tell their stories. . . . When you have freedom and trust, I think you soar in a different kind of way.”

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