After an amazing performance in last year's Unfaithful, Academy Award nominee Diane Lane next stars in the romantic comedy Under the Tuscan Sun. She plays a divorced writer whose friend tries to bring her out of the post-breakup funk by sending her on a trip to Tuscany, in the heart of Italy. She buys a house there on impulse and the unlikeliest things happen that make her realize that in life, there are second chances.Lane says that although Italy is beautiful, she didn't get to see much of it. "It's funny because being on a film set in a way you're not really there. I felt more there reading Francis Mays' 'Under the Tuscan Sun' book than being there filming the movie because I just wanted to get outside. I didn't want to be under the camera and under the lights indoors. I wanted to experience the place. So I look forward to going there someday, going back obviously."
But it was the perfect place to shoot a romantic film. "You can't capture it on camera," she adds. "It's like the leaves when they change in Canada, it's like a fire when you photograph it, it just doesn't convey it. It's amazing to me. I can't do it enough justice."
Writer/director Audrey Wells adapted the Frances Mayes novel and women were involved in every aspect of the film, which made a difference, says Lane. "I think it was refreshing for me because it seemed rather pure in the sense that there really was the female experience told through the female hands, eyes, everything. Everything, all the craftsmanship involved was pure from the female side of things.
But that doesn't mean it's a chick flick. "I feel like there's so much importance given to men and male and being on the other side of men and male and what that means and the absence of them, or the presence of them, or the qualifications of them and all these things, they're not excluded. It's not an exclusive film, it's an inclusive film about love, about people getting together and it's about different age groups also.
She says that the love at first sight clich� is dealt with through the dialogue. "She literally finds this guy and the stereotype that is perpetuated is unbelievable. Here these two people are having what one would hope is an independent meeting of the minds, 'Hi, how are you, who are you?' Introducing yourself. But you have all this cultural prejudice placed upon each other. And so the stereotypes are dealt with right there in the dialogue with the characters, and I found that very humorous and refreshing." It didn't hurt to have a great actor like Raoul Bova on board. "I thought Raoul did a marvelous job of not being cavalier, not being two-dimensional, but having a huge heart and being sensitive to the fact that people's real feelings were really involved here and it wasn't a stereotypical American goes to Italy and has an affair with an Italian man movie."
The advertising of the film, from the poster to commercials, highlight Diane as the big star in the film which puts a little pressure on her, of course. "I feel like I've never been in a film that has been so well-taken care of by its studio in terms of promotion. I feel very grateful that it's getting the amount of attention that it's due. So often it doesn't occur that way. So that eliminates all my excuses. So I'm feeling a little pressure."
Audrey Wells told her that it shouldn't be taken for granted that a woman as you as Lane would just be able to pack up, after the cut in her finances, and take everything she's got and go to Italy. But her character had every reason to. "It's very insecure-making to go through a divorce, because you've built your life on the whole thing and then it goes away. My character didn't have the onus of being a parent and a place to put her affections and attention. She had no starting point. She had to leave and start from scratch in a place where she didn't even know the language to force herself, through that plateau level of being so uncomfortable with herself and being willing to show her butt."
Diane Lane's Under the Tuscan Sun opens on Friday.
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