Laura Dern always wished for a normal childhood without divorced parents.
Laura Dern
The 52-year-old actress is the daughter of Hollywood stars Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd, who separated when she was just two years old, and Laura admits she always wondered what it would be like to be raised in a home with a mother and father who were married and lived together.
In an interview with the Daily Mail newspaper, she shared: "I saw my dad a lot but lived with her ... They had a very difficult and painful divorce. Now they're best friends, spend Christmases together and are both remarried."
Her upcoming film 'Marriage Story' sees Laura play a formidable celebrity divorce lawyer to a couple played by Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver.
The 'Jurassic Park' star was able to bring her knowledge and past experience to the role due to her divorce from musician Ben Harper in 2013.
She said: "Among the cast and crew, I don't think there was anyone who hadn't been impacted by divorce in some way."
The 'Big Little Lies' actress added "that she understood the longing to be a good mother and not wanting the child to be badly affected by a break-up" due to her own marriage breakdown.
As a mother of two - she shares 18-year-old son Ellery and 14-year-old daughter Jaya with Ben - Laura admitted she was moved when her daughter recalled a scene in her latest movie.
In a scene where Scarlett's character Nicole orders a salad when Adam's alter ego Charlie can't decide what to order for lunch.
Recalling what Jaya said to her, Laura shared: "My daughter said, 'Mom, that is heartbreak. That's the only person on the planet who knows just what you like and what and knows how to save you when you're at a lost. And I recount that as a daughter whose parents had a very difficult and painful divorce."
Tagged in Scarlett Johansson Laura Dern Ben Harper