Q 13

PLAYBOY: What do you do when there's nothing to do?

Diane Lane: Think about things. Sometimes I get depressed--a lot, sometimes--though more in the past, fortunately. I have plenty of things to occupy me now. But I get dragged down by not being active, not feeling like I'm useful, feeling like I'm getting behind where people think I should be, when I should be making every moment, you know, action-packed.

On the other hand, it's real easy for me to just sit down and watch TV. I'm really amazed at how easily I slip into unemployment. I enjoy it very much. I'd been working straight through until The Cotton Club; then I took off. I'm not a workaholic at all. I should really be reading a book for school instead of watching some rock star shake his ass on MTV.

Q 14

PLAYBOY: Speaking of rock stars, would you care to comment on that photo of you in Rolling Stone's "Random Notes" and the caption that placed you in the men's room with John Taylor of Duran Duran at the opening of New York's Hard Rock Café?

Diane Lane: Oh, please. Oh, boy. I'm sure his fiancée loved that. I met the guy that night. Some people were looking for him upstairs. I was going to the bathroom, and--I don't really remember what happened. If you recall, in the picture, I was practically cross-eyed. But that's OK. Who cares? I was not in the bathroom with him. I was just going, "John, John," and he wasn't hearing me, so I walked over to the men's room and stuck my head in and spoke to him. But you never know who's walking around there. My only concern later was being identified with that crowd of girls who circulate with, and are hung up on, rock musicians--the rock-'n'-roll-slut syndrome. I've gone through the period when whenever one walked into the room, I'd freak. My father was very intolerant of me during that phase of my development. He couldn't understand. He thought I should have more dignity than to get flushed in the face when a rock star was around. He said, "Diane, don't you know you are just as important as he is?" Important, schmortant. It didn't matter to me at the time, because your idols are your idols. I mean, you wouldn't believe whose picture I had on my wall when I was 12--and I'm not going to tell you, either. Now I agree with my father.

Q 15

PLAYBOY: What can money buy and what do you spend yours on?

Diane Lane: It can buy time and places and sometimes people--though I wouldn't want anyone I could buy. I spend it on trying to make myself and other people happy. I buy pants, shoes, garish nail polish to wear only once. I may not need something, but I want it, and I have the money, so why the hell shouldn't I? I also try to purchase culture--like art--to learn through seeing, because I've always felt there's not going to be enough time to acquire it through experience.

Q 16

PLAYBOY: Do young people still think a lot about death?

Diane Lane: I have had this bizarre thought that mine will not be a simple, normal death. For a while, I thought that after my kids had grown up, a UFO would descend and relieve me of this existence--just take me away. Can you imagine? Later, when I was 12, I went to see Close Encounters of the Third Kind and I was standing up in the theater, yelling and crying, "Take me! Take me!" My friends were holding me down, saying, "You're embarrassing us. Sit down." But my girlfriend was crying, too. We were very moved. We wanted to go out on that spaceship. I've never actually seen a UFO, but I've always thought they'd show themselves to me. I always thought I was important in that sense. I thought I had some kind of connection with those UFO people. I mean, I'm mocking it now, but it was a very serious thing that I respected at the time.

Q 17

PLAYBOY: Your parents were divorced 13 days after you were born, and you've since lived with one or the other. Any advice for single parents?

Diane Lane: Respect your child's intelligence and don't try to hide lots of stuff about yourself from your kid. You're not going to be able to, anyway.

Q 18

PLAYBOY: What gift have you always wanted to give your father?

Diane Lane: The home that he wants; someplace he'd be happy in and that would be more "him" than these cubicles he lives in in Manhattan. He wants to develop a green thumb--and he's good at it. He's got four-foot grapefruit trees in his apartment.

Q 19

PLAYBOY: Here's the socially redeeming part of the interview. This is your chance to speak out to someone or about any subject. You're on.

Diane Lane: Oh, great, on three seconds' notice! Hmm. Well, not in order of priority, but I was thinking of this last night. If I had a wish, or wishes, one of them would be to be able to make love to any man I wanted to and be able to erase it from his pompous memory. And that would be all I'd need to make me a little happier. The man wouldn't know what happened: "How did I get into this room? What happened to my clothes?" 'Bye; see you on the subway. I don't want to have to deal with the aftereffects of his having tainted me or had me or however he saw it, or I might fear he saw it. The whole conquest aspect of sex is something I wouldn't have to deal with then. Of course, I've been told by some guys who are just friends that I'm a bit of a conquestor myself.

Can I have another shot? I'm concerned about the use of the ocean as our toilet bowl. I think everything in this hotel room will probably be at the bottom of the ocean before I'm dead, and it's a damn shame. The one thing that should reach beyond international politics is the way we dispose of our crap. It makes me angry.

Q 20

PLAYBOY: What are you looking forward to?

Diane Lane: I'd like to get past this age where people don't yet expect me to be a responsible person.