She always seems to be on the brink of stardom, and then it doesn't happen. And her time has passed now.
https://waichingsthoughts81.blogspot.com/2018/10/b-movie-actress-feature-spotlight-diane.html
She has headlined some reasonably big hits and has a steady career but yes - I guess she never quite ‘got there’.
I understand she is involved in various charities and equality issues, perhaps she prefers not to let her acting career take precedence over those interests?
BAD LUCK...HER BEST SHOT WAS DURING HER LEAD PHASE..UNFAIHFUL,UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN...SHE WAS ON THE WRONG SIDE OF 40 AT THIS POINT THOUGH....
shareI agree - sadly. For me she suddenly appeared in Under The Tuscan Sun and I thought she was great in this and several other movies. But Hollywood is very harsh about imposing it's age cut-off for actresses and she arrived at the top relatively late.
shareFor a brief moment, she had the feel of an A-lister when Unfaithful came out.
shareTakes the right film to propel someone onto the A list. If Winslet is an A, what if she hadn't been in Titanic? Julia Roberts (Pretty Woman), Sandra Bullock (Speed), Meg Ryan (Harry/Sally)? Seems like if it were not for an auspicious early movie, none of these women would be gold plated. (Very debatable, btw)
Sigourney Weaver is one who may have found her way w/o one specific film, but Alien sure seemed to set the table. Glenn Close an A-lister?
I'm not sure Winslet was ever an A lister.
shareMost of her roles were too "edgy" or alternative to attain that level. It really wasn't until she did films like "Must love dogs" and "Under the Tuscan sun" where she became a little more mainstream.
Also, she is impossibly beautiful I think that intimidates a lot of women. Whereas if you look at Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan in their heydays they were more in keeping with the type of women that straight women think are attractive but men don't pay much attention to.
That's a good point.
It also seems to feed into the psychology of why Unfaithful may have been as successful as it was. A woman that beautiful being unfaithful may have fed into the subconsciousness of moviegoers who believe that a woman like that couldn't be entirely faithful, even with a fictional husband like Richard Gere.
I think you're also right that Diane is impossibly gorgeous to the degree of seeming unattainable, very similar to Sharon Stone in her heyday (and funnily enough, even Stone acknowledged her screen presence was "intimidating" even for male co-stars). Sharon Stone got around the femme-envy, however, by playing into the stereotypical roles that women expected of beautiful women like that; the femme fatale, the vixen, the sultry woman in red (or in the case of Basic Instinct, the woman in white).
I never really got the impression Diane Lane wanted to make a career out of being in erotic thrillers like Stone, though, and seemed to target projects she found more fulfilling rather than what would be the biggest box office smash. But, I suppose if achieving and maintaining the A-list plateau had been a goal, she could have gone the erotic thriller route following Unfaithful.
Even Sharon Stone’s career is a gradual decline after Basic Instinct. She even ended up on Tv shows like The Practice and Law & Order SVU.
Lane and Stone have both done a lot of nudity and intense sex scenes so perhaps that also plays a part in an actresses career trajectory?
Not sure. She almost got there. Was in some good films, is a good actress, and is smoking hot too. Had everything in the formula to do it, maybe she didn't have the right connections to get over the edge?
shareI think what snepts said about being in the right film has a lot of validity with Lane; some films she thought would be hot ("The Cotton Club", "Streets of Fire") weren't, and although she's my favorite actress and I think she's a pro through and through, she never had that one film really ("Unfaithful" was close) and thus was never able to capitalize on that career momentum afterward.
What Artisan said about her edgy fare ("Lady Beware", "My New Gun", "Fierce People", Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains") also has merit.
There's been other films such as "Judge Dredd", "Jack", and "Murder at 1600" which were seemingly going for box office weight ("Jack" was more odd though; I think it's okay), but those films did nothing for her.
Sure, I think she should've been bigger, but I like her filmography, and I heard that she's fine with her career, so I suppose that has to be good enough. Maybe if her career blew up she would've ended up unhappy, or...who knows? Choices, momentum, timing...a lot of factors I guess.
Francis Ford Coppola allegedly severed professional ties with Diane (at least until "Jack" in 1996) in retaliation for working for Walter Hill on Streets of Fire:
http://www.agcwebpages.com/BLINDITEMS/2021/OCTOBER.html
59. ENTERTAINMENT LAWYER 10/05 **12**
https://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2021/10/blind-item-12_5.html
This actress (Diane Lane) is probably B+/B now. It was not all that long ago that she was headed for A+ list. When she first started out, she caught the eye of this permanent A+ list movie director (Francis Ford Coppola) not named Spielberg. When I say she caught his eye, it means she did what he wanted and he cast her in some of his movies which were all monster hits and some are very important. She was cast in three straight movies ("The Outsiders"/"Rumble Fish"/"The Cotton Club") by the director and was going to get her own headlining movie. Then, she did some work ("Streets of Fire") for a different A list director (Walter Hill) and he never cast her in another project. He dumped her. Diane Lane/Francis Ford Coppola/"The Outsiders"; "Rumble Fish"; "The Cotton Club"/"Streets of Fire"/Walter Hill