Diane Keaton on Working with “The Family Stone” Cast: Keaton says it doesn’t matter how many times you experience it, starting work on a movie is terrifying. “We were all terrified and have no idea. We put on this front and we're just imagining what everybody else is thinking - and they're not thinking that at all because they're all nervous. It's always the same, always a nightmare.”
Diane Keaton Isn’t Much of a Hugger: The Stone family hugs but in real life, Keaton admits she’s not a hugger. “Not me. I don’t hug anybody. No, I’m uncomfortable with close physical proximity to anyone always, just because it’s so meaningful to be close to anyone. It’s so intimate.
I have a very dear friend Catherine who forces me to kiss her every time she leaves. I love her so much but it’s too… Otherwise, I would just grab her and hug her and I’m afraid of my own feelings, the intensity of that. I honor physicality. It’s really very sweet.
The whole idea of being physical with a friend… I’m thinking about what it’s really like. Like sometimes to have to hug your mom or your aunt, or even Sarah Jessica Parker. You’ve got to hug them and pretend like it’s a normal thing. All I can do is feel their breasts. If it’s a woman, I’m going [demonstrating on her body], ‘Well, wait, that one’s in here,’ or ‘How did this get there?’ Or ‘Oh, it feels like this.’ Then when you’re with a man and you’ve got to hug them and you’re friendly and it’s not a sexual thing, you’re thinking about their groiny area. You can’t help it. We’re just people. When people are naked in the movies, all I do it go [indicates looking someone up and down]. The story goes way gone. ‘Let me check that out now.’ It so throws me. “
Diane Keaton Admits She Doesn’t Mind a Little Movie Romance: “Let me tell you about that. Every opportunity I’ve ever had in a movie to kiss a man, I’ve enjoyed and that would include this guy, Tutte Lemkow, that Woody Allen threw me against. A man who did not have a real mustache but had a painted mustache. I kissed him and he would have to wipe off the mustache every time. I still enjoyed it.
The idea that when you’re in a movie and you’re acting and they are telling you, ‘You are going to kiss him and have this feeling,’ it sets me free. It’s so much fun. I always thought, ‘How odd that people don’t want to kiss in the movies, because it’s always been fantastic for me, because it gives me the license to…. That’s what I love about acting. It gives me the chance to do things I never get to do. That’s my answer.”
“The Family Stone” - A Holiday Movie That Deals With Death: “What I love about this movie, for me, is the way it’s handled. It’s the way the director wrote it and handled it in the sense that it doesn’t overtake the movie. It’s like this little mystery that slowly gets revealed to you in the most sweet, lovely, quiet, way, so unique. As that gets revealed, the movie has a little more depth for all the characters and it grows and grows.
It’s about love and loss and family and new love and babies. Then also having to say goodbye to someone that you adore, which is something that is part of all our lives. For me that is extremely touching, extremely worthy of investigation for all of us. Extremely sweet, funny and a great holiday idea.
Every year they churn out these holiday family movies. I really feel that this one has a real resonance as something you really want to think about at Christmas. Just like what your family means to you, cherishing somebody you’ve lost, then moving on with your life. And loving somebody and not being afraid to love and grow and find what’s really right for you.
In relation to Sarah Jessica Parker and Dermot [Mulroney]; their characters are a mismatch, yet he has to follow his dream and she has to find slacker Joe in order to set her free and have a great time. The whole feeling of the movie is just tonally so lovely. That’s what I thought about it.”
