Laura Dern Explains How Her View on Being ‘Sexy’ Changed in Her 50s

Actress Laura Dern says she has a powerful new insight into beauty, confidence and what it really means to feel sexy, now she is older.

The 59-year-old Big Little Lies star recently reflected on how her perspective has shifted over time, sharing that early in her career, exploring sexuality often meant trying to fit into someone else’s idea of what was desirable.

Speaking to AARP on March 23, she said: “You know, it’s interesting. What they think you want to explore as a female actor is so bizarre. Like to explore sexuality at 20 in my case meant, ‘Tell me who you want me to be, or what you think is sexy or pretty, and I’ll try to mimic that in a film. I don’t know my own self or my own sexuality yet’.”

Decades later Dern has an understanding which has deepened in the most empowering way.

She added: “But at 50, it’s like, ‘This is what’s interesting. This is what’s sexy. That’s what’s unattractive. This is what feels human.’ Vulnerability is sexuality,”

In the interview, the Oscar winner also dished on working alongside Will Arnett and Bradley Cooper on her recent film, Is This Thing On?, which is now streaming on Hulu and Disney+.

She played Arnett’s wife in the movie and said: “When [Will and I] were reading the scene in Is This Thing On? where we were talking about what we didn’t like in the relationship or in each other, and Bradley Cooper, our director, was like, ‘That scene was so sexy.’ And I just loved that.”

“I loved that this filmmaker saw communication as hot and intimacy as erotic,” she added. “Because it’s not what you get to see in movies, and it only worked because it’s about a marriage of 26 years. You know, it’s not about new infatuation.”