Golden Globes: Marriage Story star Laura Dern gets personal about divorce

The actor thanked her family for ‘redefining what family looks like’

Joanna Whitehead
Monday 06 January 2020 12:02 GMT
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Marriage Story - trailer

If you spent Christmas teary-eyed after watching Marriage Story, the tale of a couple going through a divorce with a young child, you’re in excellent company.

Directed by Noah Baumbach and streamed on Netflix, the film which stars Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver as the heart-rending couple, garnered seven nominations at this year’s Golden Globes awards.

But, it was Laura Dern’s performance as the straight-talking lawyer that saw her take home the film’s only award for Best Supporting Actress.

In a backstage interview after receiving the award, the Big Little Lies star spoke frankly about how she personally related to the story and of her own experience of divorce.

“As Noah first said about the story when we first talked about it, he said ‘I want to tell a love story where endings are not failures’. And that really moved me and struck me deeply,” she said.

Acknowledging the challenges that often arise when couples separate, Dern paid her respects to both her own and her parents’ divorce for helping her learn that “endings are not failures” when it comes to relationships.

“So to my amazing divorced parents, and my amazing step parents, and my amazing children – who came from love despite an ending in a marriage – we’re so privileged to redefine what family looks like.”

Dern continued: “There was no one on this movie that hadn’t had their family ‘reconfigured’ if you will, so we all share that. If feels deeply personal to all of us.”

She then remarked on how many people working on the film connected with the story.

“In just one cast, which could have been a million different people, and one crew, which could have been a million different people, we all felt personal about it,” she said.

The 52-year-old actor also scooped the Best Supporting Actress award in the The National Society of Film Critics award on Saturday.

Dern also starred in the critically acclaimed Little Women alongside Emma Watson, Saoirse Ronan and Florence Pugh.

Directed by Greta Gerwig, the film was nominated for two awards at the Golden Globes, but failed to secure a win.

Baumbach, who is in a relationship with Gerwig, admitted that watching the film was an emotional experience for him.

“That’s a movie I start crying almost from the beginning to the very end,” he said.

“There’s so much emotion in it. It’s funny and it’s dramatic. You can tell it comes from the heart. It’s beautiful.”

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