Diane Lane relates to ‘Paris Can Wait’ role: ‘I’m at that crossroads’

TORONTO – Like her character in the new film “Paris Can Wait,” Diane Lane says she’s at a “crossroads.”

Opening Friday in Toronto and Vancouver, the dramedy by Eleanor Coppola stars Lane as Anne, the wife of a bigwig Hollywood producer, played by Alec Baldwin. Anne’s husband is often away due to work and, after a road adventure through the south of France with a charismatic Frenchman (played by Arnaud Viard), she gains a new perspective on life.

“I’m at that crossroads, like my character is, obviously we’re the same age, which is nice, too,” said Lane, 52.

“When everything is gone — your parents have passed away, your child has grown up, your marriages are adios, and so here you are. And now I get to say, ‘Oh, I have all of this extra availability. What do I care about?'”

For Lane, who was nominated for a best actress Oscar in 2003 for “Unfaithful,” one of her current passions is climate change.

“It’s interesting right now, it’s the most powerfully, politically charged time since when I was very little and we were going through Vietnam,” she said.

“Having just gone to Washington, D.C., and marching for climate acknowledgment, I’m showing up as a citizen, I’m showing up as a civilian, I’m showing up as a woman…. We’re signing petitions and we’re trying to not just be railroaded.”

This is 81-year-old Coppola’s first time directing a scripted feature, which she also wrote based on a road trip she once took. Her husband, Francis Ford Coppola, has also directed Lane on four films — “Rumble Fish,” “The Outsiders,” “The Cotton Club” and “Jack.”

“My God, they couldn’t be more different, like most married couples,” said Lane. “But it’s a family business…. It’s inevitable that she’s going to have some knowledge from behind the scenes that almost no first-time director can have, because she’s armed with all of that experience of being behind the curtain in Oz all these years of what it takes to get a film made.”

“Paris Can Wait” features a gorgeous backdrop and delectable dinner scenes with French cuisine that Lane found overwhelming.

“I think I was strobing from the amount of chocolate I consumed,” she said. “It was like that Pink Floyd song where they say your hands are floating up like two balloons.

“I was like, ‘Bye, I’m floating up into the ceiling from caffeine and this chocolate. I can’t feel my digits, my lips are going numb.’ I’m exaggerating, but I’d been worried that I wouldn’t be able to go to sleep again. It really is a drug. You don’t think about it but then when you eat that much of it, you certainly are confronted with that reality.”

Also like Anne, Lane said she has a hard time luxuriating and living spontaneously in the way Viard’s character does.

“I get nervous when I have nothing planned,” she said. “I don’t mean like over a 48-hour period of time, that’s fine.

“But I’ve never had a vacation that lasted longer than two weekends, meaning a 10-day, that’s it. The thought of taking off the month of August blows my mind. The way the Europeans do every year? I just can’t even.”

The experience on set brought back memories of when she hit the road with her dad as a kid.

“My first road trip, I was four years old and I basically lived in the back windshield,” said Lane. “I camped out there, I guess it was 1969 cross-country with my dad.

“We went from California to New York and that was special, that was amazing…. I owned the whole back half of the car. Nobody wore seatbelts yet, for quite a while.

“I was my dad’s little buddy, so that was his thing — taking off in the car. I really enjoyed that.”