Filmmaker Nancy Meyers has paid tribute to her longtime friend and frequent collaborator Diane Keaton, the Oscar-winning actor who died on Saturday at 79. Meyers described Keaton as “fearless” and “born to be a movie star.”
“These past 48 hours have not been easy. Seeing all of your tributes to Diane has been a comfort. As a movie lover, I’m with you all – we have lost a giant. A brilliant actress who time and again laid herself bare to tell our stories,” Meyers wrote on Instagram. “As a woman, I lost a friend of almost 40 years – at times over those years, she felt like a sister because we shared so many truly memorable experiences. As a filmmaker, I’ve lost a connection with an actress that one can only dream of.”
Meyers and Keaton first worked together in 1987 on “Baby Boom” and then again on the 1991 “Father of the Bride” remake and its 1995 sequel. They reunited on 2003’s box office hit “Something’s Gotta Give,” co-starring Jack Nicholson and Keanu Reeves.
“We all search for that someone who really gets us, right? Well, with Diane, I believe we mutually had that. I always felt she really got me so writing for her made me better because I felt so secure in her hands. I knew how vulnerable she could be,” Meyers continued. “And I knew how hilarious she could be, not only with dialogue (which she said word for word as written but managed to always make it sound improvised) but she could be funny sitting at a dinner table or just walking into a room.”
Meyers also offered some insight into Keaton’s acting process, highlighting a sequence in “Something’s Gotta Give” where her character is weeping while writing: “She went at it hard and then somehow made it funny. And I remember she would sometimes spin in a kind of goofy circle before a take to purposely get herself off balance or whatever she needed to shed so she could be in the moment.”
Meyers acknowledged that she wasn’t alone in feeling a cinematic connection to Keaton, whose long and indelible career included Francis Ford Coppola’s “Godfather” films and Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall,” “Love and Death” and “Manhattan.” Keaton won an Oscar for “Annie Hall” and was nominated again for “Reds,” “Marvin’s Room” and “Something’s Gotta Give.”
“But the truth is – Diane didn’t just ‘get me.’ I’ve watched all of her groundbreaking spectacular work with Woody Allen a million times and I watch her performance in Warren Beatty’s ‘Reds’ with awe. Diane did exactly the same for them because that is what she does. She goes deep. And I know those who have worked with her know what I know… she made everything better.”
Meyers ended her heartfelt tribute by saying that she already misses Keaton, who “changed my life.”
“Every set up, every day, in every movie, I watched her give it her all. She was fearless, she was like nobody ever, she was born to be a movie star, her laugh could make your day and for me, knowing her and working with her – changed my life,” she concluded. “Thank you Di. I’ll miss you forever.”
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