Although Laura Dern credits spending a childhood summer on the film sets of Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese as the main influence on her acting career, that's not to say she isn't mesmerized by her own parents' talents — particularly her mother, Diane Ladd. The two have appeared on camera together numerous times, including acting out the twisted mother-daughter relationship in David Lynch's "Wild at Heart" and, more recently, in the 2011 HBO drama "Enlightened."
During an interview with The New York Times, Dern noted why her mother's latter performance truly stuck with her. Describing filming a scene where her character, Amy Jellicoe, broke down over her divorce, Dern recalled that both actresses suddenly felt extreme real-life emotions. "We were both holding the reality of that," the star explained. Describing Ladd's acting in that moment, Dern called it "powerful," adding, "I'd only seen that in airports."
Dern then explained that she actually finds acting inspiration whenever she's at an airport. Noting the interesting dichotomy between a person saying goodbye as opposed to their facial expressions, Dern finds her people-watching hobby (or as she calls them, "publicly private" moments) fascinating. "You know, [method acting] would say, 'You can't make that.' You are having a publicly private moment, somehow, for you, whatever your process is" (via The New York Times).
