Lara Flynn Boyle on being a longtime tabloid target: ‘I have weathered the storm with a lot of negative publicity’
Count Lara Flynn Boyle among those done dirty by the tabloids, but she's not going to complain.
The actress, 51, gave a rare interview to the Hollywood Reporter, discussing her first film role in five years, in Death in Texas, that she insists is not a comeback — because she never left. She also talks about being a longtime tabloid target.
While we wouldn't blame her if she vented, like some other female stars who have spoken about media mistreatment in the '90s and '00s, she feels it's all part of the job.
"Well, it’s not always a pony in a parade, but I chose my career," the Twin Peaks alum said. "I chose the highs, and I chose the lows. This career I have chosen has been kinder to me than it hasn’t. If I can’t roll with the bumps, then I have no business riding the roller coaster. Of course, I’m a human being and there are going to be questions that come into your head or your heart. I don’t know if this is good or bad, but I have weathered the storm with a lot of negative publicity and at the end of the day, I’ll take the negative publicity and keep on rolling. It’s worth it."
Boyle faced body shaming and endless speculation about plastic surgery. Despite living under the radar these days — with big moments like that tutu dress (at the 2003 Golden Globes) in the rearview mirror — she still has paparazzi lurking outside her home hoping to get a shot. Bonus points if it's an unflattering one.
Boyle appears in Death in Texas, starring Bruce Dern:
"They’re like mosquitoes," she said. "The minute you leave your house, it’s like mosquitoes. They’re like, 'Boyle has left the side entrance. Boyle is now going out the main gate.' But I chose this profession. I would be a total jerk if I complained about it. If I’m going to take the paycheck, I’m also going to take the bad publicity. It’s going to happen."
For the record, Boyle — whose relationships with Jack Nicholson, Kyle MacLachlan and David Spade made for gossip column fodder — doesn't read any of that stuff anyway.
"I don’t have a computer," she said. "Could not tell you how to Google." Nor does she have a smartphone — "not the ones that can look up where you are or where you’re going." She prefers the newspaper and watches with news. Her team flags anything about her of note, whether it's "nasty things or good things."
Of staying offline, she said, "Ignorance is bliss," adding, "I don’t need that."
Boyle, who married second husband Donald Ray Thomas in 2006, said she's only seen "45 percent" of her work, which includes The Practice, Men in Black ll and Wayne's World. "It’s not vanity for me, I gave that up a long time ago," she explained. Instead, she likes to do the job and "I move on," though she did talk about her journey with vanity too, saying, "Bette Davis said at the best: 'Old age ain’t no place for sissies.' It’s a lovely hurdle to get over. Things drop, things fall, things change, but the work is always there."
Speaking of her Death in Texas role, the first movie she's been in since 2015's Lucky Dog, Boyle refused to call it a comeback. “I never went anywhere,” she says.
So it seemed no surprise that Boyle also said she had no regrets — about her career or otherwise.
"Not a thing," she replied. "Even things that someone else would look at as regrets, those experiences made me stronger, made me more spirited and made me forge through."
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