DIANE KEATON TRIES TO CONNECT TO MOVIE MOTHER

Diane Keaton plays the mother of three daughters in Because I Said So but found it difficult to relate to her character’s parenting.

Diane Keaton was terrified to play the outspoken mother of three daughters Mandy Moore, Piper Perabo and Lauren Graham in Because I Said So because she didn’t share the same experience with her own mother.

Diane says it was difficult for her to grasp how freely she discussed the topic of sex and marriage with them because with her mother the subject was taboo.

“In fact she never gave me advice about marrying or she never really talked about men in terms of that would be a fulfilling thing for me in my life. So in that regard she was kind of this modern woman even though she lived her entire life married to one man and had a very traditional marriage so I wasn’t really familiar with somebody like Daphne in my heart.”

What she did ultimately connect to Daphne was sharing the same intense love for her own children keeping her awake at night and relating to her character’s romantic failure.

“I started to really kind of understand who she was in relationship particularly in her relationship to Mandy, the daughter that she’s most concerned about. The one that she feels is the most vulnerable, the one that could take the hit and maybe be permanently hurt and it just kills her. And I think it also kills her based on her own feelings of failure in romance. Who doesn’t identify with that? I mean everybody identifies with the fact that they’ve failed in romance. I mean many times all of us have to go through a lot of trials or in my case you just fail, permanently fail in romance so I really did get to know her in a way where I felt like I cared about her.”

Part of becoming a close-knit family meant Diane had to let her guard down physically like getting a pie thrown in her face.