And the quote she often tells in her Mississippi accent is, Be a doctor, be a loyal, be a leopard missionary.

But by God, don't be an actress, so that didn't work.

Hi, my name is Laura Dern, and this is the timeline of my career.

Damn, it was a dumb thing to do.

Yeah, my first listed role is white Lightning.

I was, I believe, five at the time, and my mother was in the film along with Burt Reynolds and other amazing cast of actors, and they had dressed me to do a background walk by.

But I, because of trauma, forced myself into the movie because I was watching and a man comes toward my mother holding a shotgun, and I panicked and started running and grabbed her leg to protect her.

So it's a devastating story.

I got my got my start in pictures by being traumatized and trying to protect my mother.

Your walk like to see you again.

When I was about seven, I was an extra in a film my mother was in for Martin Scorsese called Palaces and Liver anymore, and then the right pidge of seven.

I knew I wanted to be an actress.

Ultimately, from that experience started studying.

I remember watching my mother and Ellen Burstyn have a scene in a bathroom together, two women talking and watching Scorsese improvise and create and navigate human emotion with them.

And I fell in love with that idea, and my dad that summer was making a film with Hitchcock.

So is watching Hitchcock and Scorsese.

I mean, you do the math.

Of course.

I want to be an actor in the dream.

There was our world and the world with dark because there weren't any robins.

So I was 16 years old.

I met David Lynch on an audition for Blue Velvet.

I was so excited just to have the audition, and I went in.

He didn't ask me to read.

He had never seen me in the movie.

We talked about life nature meditation.

I was then offered the role, and he never saw me act.

I don't know what he saw, but I'm so grateful that he trusted me to join his family.

David creates a world and ask you to hurl yourself into it.

The fact that someone who's given us so much torment and danger is also the person who taught me comedy who created a mood and a feeling.

All of it had this beautiful, eerie, mysterious magic to it.

I got us a room at the Cape Fear and guess what Param is playing at the Hurricane Wild at heart was even Maur oven immersion into David's vision and throwing myself off the deep end.

And he gave me an opportunity to play the polar opposite character than I just had for him only a few years before in Blue Velvet.

And Nicolas Cage was such a brave, radical actor toe partner with, and we were true partners on that movie and we loved it so much.

And when we finished, we were so in our sailor and Lula mindset.

I think we didn't even know how to get out of the movie, that my own fear on my most of them, I say It's very chief, rambling Rose.

The fact that our director, Martha Coolidge, saw my mother so clearly in the role and wanted us to do it together was such a dream come true.

My mom and I did both get nominated for Oscars from the film, and it's the Academy history.

One of my favorite memories was calling my grandma.

He's from Alabama, my mom's mom, who raised me, who was the love of my life.

Mary and I said, Grandma, guess what?

Your daughter and your granddaughter both just got nominated for Academy Awards, she said for Ramblin Rose, and he said, Yeah, she goes, All that's good.

Still wish you'd been a hand model.

Welcome to dressing.

People think that was my big studio movie experience, but it felt like every other radical independent because they were doing something that hadn't been done.

And Stevens Energy about it is voracious.

So in the process of making Jurassic Park, the Raptors were there.

I was scared of them.

They're so riel and the animatronic is so amazing.

And these puppeteers air so brilliant and I'll never forget that feeling.

I mean, it was great as an actor, I wasn't looking at nothing.

This monster was coming after me, but the try Sarah Tops was also really there, and I fell so in love with him and Sam Neill's so lovely in that scene when he lays on it and feels its breath.

It has little tears cause in a feel good.

Seeing that movie seen Jurassic Park for the first time was one of my favorite memories.

I sat with Steven with popcorn, and Sam Neill and Jeff Goldblum was just the four of us.

We just sat alone in a screening room and it was on and I couldn't believe it.

I look up and I see the Brockie Saurus that it was amazing.

I started to cry.

It was so moving.

Even those of us who were in it were stunned.

Ellen, I think you are amazing.

I think you're amazing to being asked by Ellen to do her coming out episode.

The puppy episode was, uh, a gift, a gift for my Children's generation.

For me, for all of us to bear witness to someone's bravery, altering history.

And I feel so honored to have been along for that ride was amazing.

She'd seen the film Citizen Ruth that I did, and based on that, she asked me to do it because she wanted to have that feeling where you go.

Oh my God, this person is my best friend.

Soul made just like me.

Oh, my God am I attracted this person like that was part of the turn for the show.

But to be part of the specific moment I will never forget.

I literally was holding her as she said the words and I felt her whole body start shaking and voice start to crack and to literally be staring in the person's eyes and holding their hands as they say, Okay, for the first time, beyond art, beyond anything but for their life changed my life.

So I'm forever grateful being part of that.

The shocker Waas that the aftermath was filled with hate and heightened security and all kinds of horror.

And so just when you think we're ready, we might not be ready, and we're going to continue the Revolution.

Guys Deputy Diane recording When David calls, you say yes, myself in Naomi Watts went to have cappuccinos with him.

He was telling us he was cooking up something really well.

You want to be in it, but he described who I would play, and then I signed a bunch of paperwork so I could never tell anyone who I was playing, and that secret was kept until people saw it which is hard because it was so exciting to play Diane in terms of a look.

David was so specific and clear, and we have such a great relationship about building character and, you know, he just loved building it to the point that he saw her lips be a very specific color.

And so he mixed paint to get the color to be what he wanted because that lipstick doesn't exist.

And I just love that about him, that he's that much of an artist and you never let up early win, Do you hear me?

You have to speak up Emma.

Bella, you have to be a big girl and use your voice in this world.

Leon are Novelist began the story.

David Kelly ran with it from there, and John Mark Valet or director of the first season.

Uh, Reese Witherspoon and I had done wild with him.

We were all really this family and kind of went right into Big Little lies together.

Shortly thereafter, they really let me participate in building all the things you want in a character.

It's weird as an actor when your character so takes over that you're a little bit embarrassed by her.

And that's how I feel.

She can't help herself.

Guys take after take.

She just can't you know, having female company was a big deal, let alone collaborate deep collaborators.

So it's been remarkable myself.

Reese and Nicole Kidman have hardly ever worked with other women.

So big little lies.

Certainly for us, I felt like a big part of that second season.

I mean, it's still us, but they hired other woman to join us and Merrill something.

But it s so I think it'll be okay.

I mean, people Meryl Streep, give me a break.

That's why they call me a bulldog.

Because I had to learn how to fight back for the very last of the Resistance.

But we're not alone.

Ryan Johnson invited me to lunch to talk about a role in a movie.

He started talking about this thing he was writing and how he was seeing it and describing this world.

It was just like in space, when everything is so overwhelming and you have to take command of your ship.

And I was like, My God, yes, that sats it.

And so where does it take place?

And he was like, No, it's space And I said, I know, I hear that I get it as a parallel, you know, But like, where is it in small town America are like is a No no, no, it's Star Wars.

You're making a star did 10 minutes describing a Star Wars movie, and I thought he was telling me about some indie movie.

And then I got to set and they rolled camera and I opened my eyes and they called action and I was staring at See Threepio and I start to cry.

I literally I had to cut.

I couldn't.

It was so shocking because we've all pretended in our rooms at six, you know, have a light saber.

And so it's magic.

What an amazing thing to be part of that.

When I think back on my different roles and and project forward into the future, I pray wonderful choices that are given to me and, um, to hopefully continue to play characters I have no idea about.

I've never even considered playing are nothing like anyone else I've played.