The Laura Dern Wild at Heart: A Hollywood Golden Girl in the Making

At first glance, the then-23-year-old Laura Dern would seem like a Hollywood golden girl, with her stunning looks and promising filmography. However, her nascent career revealed a set of roles that were shaping up to be as strange as her parents'. This was largely due to David Lynch's Wild at Heart, which gave them the seats they needed to join the adult table.

The dawn of the '90s found two of cinema's children looking to make their mark: Nicolas Cage, the nephew of Francis Ford Coppola, and Laura Dern, the daughter of Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd. In this article, we revisit our September 1990 cover story featuring the beloved actress Laura Dern, in which she discusses learning a bit about her mother in their first scene together on the set of David Lynch's Wild at Heart.

That Time When is Interview's weekly trip through the pop-cultural space-time continuum, where we return to some of the most overlooked moments from issues past. This week, we take a look back at Laura Dern's early career and how her role in Wild at Heart helped shape her into the talented actress she is today.

Laura dern wild at heart