And at the same time as her feed has reasserted her cultural relevance — inspiring headlines in Vogue and InStyle — Keaton has been starring in movies that examine how isolating it can be to be a septuagenarian. In her latest, “Poms,” shewho starts a cheerleading squad at her retirement home in a quest to find meaning after being diagnosed with cancer. The film, out Friday, follows last year’s “Book Club,” in which her character’s daughters are so worried about their mother living alone in L.A.
Despite it all, though — usually when she’s trying to fall asleep, or when she’s at the start of a new day — Keaton has been quietly contemplating her mortality. Indeed, Keaton does not employ a formal publicist, using her assistant to field press requests. And she obviously serves as her own stylist. Sitting for an interview earlier this month, she’d chosen a signature black turtleneck with sleeves that grazed her knuckles underneath a white coat cinched with a big leather belt. She had chunky silver rings on almost every finger, and her gray hair had been immaculately blown out.
“She’d be onstage and she’d be crying — crying real tears onstage. OK?” Keaton says. “So I went back to see her and I said, ‘Oh, God, I don’t know how you do this. I mean, how do you do this?’ [She said,] ‘I love it so much.’ I’m going, ‘You do?’ Not me. You couldn’t get me to do that day after day. I don’t want to do it day after day. Not only do I want to do something different, I don’t want to go there day after day and do the same thing and feel those feelings like that. She’s an actress.
Love Diane Keaton.
Let’s not do this, America. Please. Just not now, not ever.