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A dinosaur-chasing scientist in the ‘Jurassic Park’ series. A doting mother in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women. A muse for David Lynch. An Oscar-winning lawyer in Marriage Story. Laura Dern really can do it all. As the daughter of iconic stars Diane Ladd and Bruce Dern, she was always destined for a life on the screen, but she has forged her own path and carved out a legacy completely divorced from her famous parents.
Though her resume may be deep and varied, Dern isn’t known for many action movies. In 2019, she played the wife of Liam Neeson’s character in Cold Pursuit, a revenge thriller about a snow plough driver enacting payback on a drug cartel. Right at the start of her career, she had a tiny role in White Lightning, an action romp starring Burt Reynolds. She played the on-screen daughter of her real-life mother. However, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have an opinion on the genre.
Dern was asked by Interview magazine in 1990 about her thoughts on violence in movies. She used this opportunity to praise an action film that had just come out. “I’m friends with Renny Harlin, who directed Die Hard 2,” she said. “I thought it was beautifully done. What I loved about it was that the bad guys are basically American political figures. They don’t have East German accents or whatever. It’s interesting that the same kind of movie, with the blood and everything, can be done well. Unfortunately, that’s what brings in that age group that wants to see those movies – but there’s certainly a line to be drawn somewhere.”
Released two years after the game-changing original, Die Hard 2 once again throws Bruce Willis’ John McClane headfirst into a dangerous situation. Whilst waiting for his wife’s plane to land, McClane discovers that the airport’s air traffic control system has been overtaken by disgraced ex-Colonel William Stuart (William Sadler) and his band of baddies. It’s up to the unlucky cop to once again save the day, as he seemingly can’t go anywhere without some sort of terrorist attack kicking off.
The Blue Velvet star was being a little cheeky when she referred to Harlin as her ‘friend’. The two were actually romantically involved around this time. He would direct her the following year in Rambling Rose, bagging Dern her first Oscar nomination for ‘Best Actress’. Harlin took over the ‘Die Hard’ franchise from original director John McTiernan.
Die Hard 2 was a major financial success, despite it triggering a lawsuit from power tool manufacturer Black & Decker. It finished the year as the seventh-highest-grossing film and took around $100million more than the original. That being said, most critics considered it a step down from what had come before, with an inferior plot and none of the surprise factor of the original. Although, if fans of the series knew what was to come in later years, they might have been kinder to it at the time.
Her decision might have been motivated by her personal relationship with the director, but it’s still fascinating to hear from Dern about a genre with which she is almost never associated. If the ‘Die Hard’ franchise ever wants to do a gender-swapped reboot in the near future, then we know who to cast as ‘Joanna’ McClane.
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