Laura Dern Opens Up About How Exploring Sexuality Changed After 50: ‘Vulnerability Is Sexuality’

Laura Dern Opens Up About How Exploring Sexuality Changed After 50: ‘Vulnerability Is Sexuality’ https://ift.tt/hR3TOo7

The 'Is This Thing On?' actress has her own definition of what's sexy

Laura Dern on Jan. 19
Credit: Karwai Tang/WireImage/Getty

NEED TO KNOW

• Laura Dern is revealing her personal definition of sexuality
• The Big Little Lies star, 59, told AARP that "Vulnerability is sexuality"
• Dern also discussed Hollywood's difficulty with portraying aging, and teased upcoming projects with Nicole Kidman

Laura Dern has her own definition of sexuality.

The Oscar winner recently opened up to AARP about aging, costars, and how she thinks about exploring sexuality in roles.

"You know, it’s interesting. What they think you want to explore as a female actor is so bizarre," Dern, 59, said in the interview published on Monday, March 23. "Like to explore sexuality at 20 in my case meant, ‘Tell me who you want me to be, or what you think is sexy or pretty, and I’ll try to mimic that in a film. I don’t know my own self or my own sexuality yet.’ "

Now in her late 50s, Dern says she understands sexuality in a new way.

"But at 50, it’s like, ‘This is what’s interesting. This is what’s sexy. That’s what’s unattractive. This is what feels human.’ Vulnerability is sexuality," she continued.

The Big Little Lies star also detailed what it was like working with Will Arnett and Bradley Cooper in Is This Thing On?, which hit theaters last year and is now streaming on Hulu and Disney+.

"When [Will Arnett and I] were reading the scene in Is This Thing On? where we were talking about what we didn’t like in the relationship or in each other, and Bradley Cooper, our director, was like, ‘That scene was so sexy.’ And I just loved that," said Dern, who played Arnett's wife in the film. "I loved that this filmmaker saw communication as hot and intimacy as erotic. Because it’s not what you get to see in movies, and it only worked because it’s about a marriage of 26 years. You know, it’s not about new infatuation."

Will Arnett and Laura Dern in "Is This Thing On?" (2025).
Credit: Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

She also explained how her acting interests have evolved over the years.

"I’m excited to dedicate myself to understanding human behavior more patiently," said Dern. "I love living in the gray far more today than I did at 20, so the complexity of character I’m interested in playing and can play has only expanded."

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

But when it comes to depicting people who are aging, Dern says Hollywood still has a ways to go.

"We all know what it’s like to be a kid, but we don’t know how to grow old. And we don’t know how to find community around it, and how to talk about our fear of disease, of losing life, of losing loved ones. It’s pretty amazing in a community of storytellers that there are hardly any stories about that, and yet it’s inescapable for us all to face," she told AARP.

Laura Dern in September 2025
Credit: Zach Hilty/BFA.com/Shutterstock

Later in the interview, Dern teased her possible return to the HBO hit Big Little Lies, which was confirmed to be returning for a third season last year. In Big Little Lies, Dern costarred alongside Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Shailene Woodley, and Zoë Kravitz.

"There are a couple of projects that Nicole Kidman and I have, a film we’re excited about that’s in development, and another show that I’m working hard at right now," Dern told the outlet. "So there are exciting things to come."