NEW YORK POST INTERVIEW
From Pagesix - NY Post online
Published in October 05
Thanx to Eve

'IF LOVE is the answer, could you re phrase the question?" wrote Jane Wagner for her muse Lily Tomlin.  

SITTING in Michael's restaurant near the garden in back, I pondered my up coming interview with the one and only Diane Keaton. I hadn't seen her often, although I had known her slightly through the years when she was deeply involved with Woody Allen, then with Warren Beatty, then with Al Pacino.  

Always a fashion icon and a kind of "kooky" curiosity, I wondered how she had fared through the years with fans associating her, more often than not, with her wacky character in "Annie Hall," a performance which won Keaton an Oscar. "I did OK," said Diane, "when something works for you, I say use it, but I did do some challenging serious roles. (I'll say she did! — "Looking for Mr. Goodbar," "Reds," "The Godfather" to name a few.)  

This mother of two arrived with flair, running right into Barry Diller, who she said she hadn't seen in ages. She was all in black with a lot of fabulous silver bracelets and beautiful spectacles. She is an energetic fount of enthusiasm. "I am staying down the street at the Peninsula Hotel," said Diane, "and just outside my window is the biggest clock you've ever seen. The view is so fantastic. And I am just knocking myself out being in New York because it's so exciting and I seldom get here, seeing as how I hate to fly. Everything here is great; the museums — yes, I've got to get to the Museum of Modern Art before I go back to California."  

DIANE HAS been on quite a roll since making her Acad emy Award-nominated "comeback" role in "Something's Gotta Give" with Jack Nicholson. She laughs at the comeback idea. "I haven't been away! I always keep on working, staying busy. I really have never in my life considered quitting. Where else can you find the satisfactions of acting?"  

"Yes," said I, "plus the fact that making a movie earns you more money than becoming a waitress." Diane laughed. "Yes, there's that!" 

I had just been to a private screening of the star's latest movie, "The Family Stone," co-starring Sarah Jessica Parker. Katie Couric and I had the screening room mostly to ourselves, and when we left it both of us had big tear-streaks down our cheeks! Said Katie, "Well, that movie certainly pressed all of my buttons." I agreed. We rhapsodized over having been happily "manipulated" into sentimentality by a clip of Judy Garland singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas."  

Though I thought the movie needed some editing and was a bit of a mess, I have seldom seen a film that was so utterly appealing — it's all about a functioning dysfunctional family into which the oldest son brings a haughty, neurotic and uptight girlfriend (Sarah Jessica). Diane plays the saucy, profane and profoundly adorable mother, and the rest of the enormous cast is terrific. Not a bad outing in the lot. I especially liked the daughter, played by Rachel McAdams, who gives her brother's fiancée such a hard time. (Rachel has now solidified the promise she showed in "The Notebook" and "Red Eye." Major, major movie star quality in Miss McAdams!) 

I don't know that the average big family is so hard on outsiders who don't come up to their informal kidding and heckling. But no quibbling; this is a warm wonderful movie. If it has almost too many actors in it, it still never bores us. We go along scene to chaotic scene, wanting to help them all solve their problems. There is a first-rate performance by Luke Wilson, who is the second son, something of a hippie. He has an important point of view.  

Seldom will you see the sidebar plot line of breast cancer told on the screen in such a dignified, warm and loving manner. I won't give away the story, but you will be amazed by director Tom Bezucha's tenderness. Diane Keaton said she loved making the movie and she adored her co-star Sarah Jessica Parker. I'll say here myself that Sarah Jessica is a very brave actor and a very good one. She lets herself be set up in this film in a painfully unappealing manner; playing a prude and maybe a bigot, to great effect. Diane just nods, "She is a terrific nice girl, a very big star — she gets on the cover of Vogue, for Pete's sake — and she will try anything because she can really act."  

Well, so can Diane Keaton. Although nowadays the foremost fact of her life continues to be her daughter, 10, and her son, 41/2. (We burbled over snapshots of her two adorable kids.) Said Diane, "Everything changes when you have children. They become paramount. They have had such an important effect on my life. I find myself up at 5, going to my daughter's swimming class. It's amazing. But of course, I have never 'retired' . . . I am always up for a new screenplay. It's so hard to get a movie to go these days; it's almost a miracle. But I also like to write and direct, and I have a lot of irons in the fire."  

Despite her famous affairs of the past, Diane insists she is not pursuing romance now, and laughs off rumors pairing her with "Something's Gotta Give" co-star Keanu Reeves. "Poor Keanu!" she says, "But we both did get to make a movie with Jack Nicholson. How lucky is that?" 

And how lucky did I get to interview someone I admire — a real star, a real human being, and intelligent down-to-earth realist with a great sense of humor!