Q 6

PLAYBOY: What do you and your cat have in common?

Laura Dern: Every time my ex-boyfriend calls my house, my cat gets sick. I get a bladder infection, my cat gets a bladder infection. He can pick up the energy from how I react to things.

Q 7

PLAYBOY: In Rambling Rose both you and your mother make out with Robert Duvall. Did you and she compare notes afterward?

Laura Dern: Whoa! I don't think we ever compared notes, because I never really thought about it until this second. We never even talked about it. But Mom and I have always been pretty open about sex. Before I ever had sex, she'd answer any question I had, and that's really cool. And once I started having sex, I didn't want to talk to anybody about it. Or at least not to any parent.

Q 8

PLAYBOY: Mooning has a proud tradition. But it is not often a female extravagance. We understand that you participated in the multiple celebrity mooning of director James L. Brooks at a restaurant. What premoon thoughts went through your head before you did it?

Laura Dern: It was one of those things where everyone agreed, "When Jim gets back from the bathroom, let's all moon him as a joke." So Jim came back and I saw everybody stand up and I thought, Oh, my God, we're really going to do this. You don't have time to think in that situation. We were at a restaurant in this private room upstairs and we all did it really fast so nobody in the restaurant could see. And Jim goes," Man, I've never seen such a group of great asses in my life. I didn't know which one to look at first." So then Glenn [Close] and Woody [Harrelson] mooned the entire restaurant. And the restaurant loved it. Then Woody got Jim to play this game. Woody said, "If you lose, you have to moon the restaurant." And Jim said, "Oh, c'mon, you can't do this to me." And I remember Glenn going, "C'mon, Jim, you have to do it. If we did it, you have to do it." And Jim says, "That's easy for you to say, you don't have an L. Ron Hubbard tattoo on your ass!" Which I thought was pretty funny. So Jim walked up to the balcony and he screamed out to the restaurant customers, who at this point were all looking up, waiting, and he said, "I refuse to moon you!" And everybody started applauding. Everybody there had such a good time. In fact, one group of people, a table of six, came up to us afterward and said, "Thanks for a great night."

Q 9

PLAYBOY: As a follower of politics, tell us: Just how honest do you want a world leader to be? What's the difference between honesty and full disclosure?

Laura Dern: A politician has to be careful about where he places his honesty. And to be discreet about it. It's like being in a relationship: You want honesty with discretion. I always thought people should be honest, no matter what. But I've learned, being the victim of honesty in a relationship, that sometimes it's less hurtful not to know everything.

Q 10

PLAYBOY: Some women make good decisions about men and some make bad ones. Which of those are you?

Laura Dern: I'm starting to learn that there's no good or bad. My decisions are based on my personal struggles and my issues about relationships. I pull in men that teach me about what I need to learn to get me to another level as a person. I mean, you can't hate a man for being incapable of monogamy and then move on to another guy who cheats on you also. It's not that all men are that way. There is something affected by that in you. What is it that, if a man is unfaithful, makes me say, "Oh, my God. He wants everybody else, he doesn't want me"? And "I'm nothing, I'm shit." What is it in me that makes me feel so attached to the need of that man to tell me what my value is? If he wants other people, then he clearly doesn't want me. And I deserve to be with somebody who wants me. That's the healthy, wonderful way I'd like to look at things.

Q 11

PLAYBOY: You've been romantically linked with actors Kyle MacLachlan and Vincent Spano and producer Renny Harlin. Would you like to talk about the specialness of dating someone outside of the business? Someone who doesn't have anything in development?

Laura Dern: I can't answer that question. I've always dated people who, on some level, were in the arts or in film. I would like to be able to answer that question, so I did know the difference. But I can't.

Q 12

PLAYBOY: How do you mend a broken heart?

Laura Dern: Time. Pampering yourself. Don't get into that "What did I do wrong? I must be unworthy" thing. That gets boring really quickly. Drink lots of water. Meditate. Do lots of yoga and don't eat sugar. It all depends on what makes you feel good. Once, I stayed at Isabella Rossellini's for a couple of weeks and we listened to tons of Billie Holiday. That totally put me in great spirits.