An Interview with Diane Ladd

Abstract

Diane Ladd counts as her favorite women actors Bette Davis, Simone Signoret, and a trio of actors who epitomize American Method acting at its best: Geraldine Page, Joanne Woodward, and Kim Stanley. She shares with these women a strong, soulful, and gutsy presence. Ladd brings her own distinctive qualities to acting, among them a spirited playfulness with more than a soupçon of flamboyance. Her three most well-known characterizations, Flo in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974), Marietta in Wild at Heart (1990), and Mother in Rambling Rose (1992), are roles that have strong elements of caricature. On paper, Flo, the foul-mouthed, brassy waitress with a heart of gold; Marietta, the crazily possessive, lascivious, southern ex-beauty queen; and her antithesis, Mother, the genteel, spiritual, progressive southerner, tend toward stereotype. But Ladd endows each of these portrayals with a largesse d’esprit—a generosity toward the character, an out-sized gusto, and an intense commitment to bringing the character to her fullest, most vivid dimension. Like the actors she admires, she is willing to go to the edge of the edge with her characters, as in her performance of Marietta, which is truly “wild at heart.”