Town & Country is killing it with these cover lines. Do I want to read about a MASSIVELY EXPENSIVE feud about horses? YES. Am I interested in how to dress like an Italian aristocrat? YES. Would I be interested in reading what I presume is a slightly snarky nepotism piece? MAIS OUI. It’s also a stroke of genius to use the “I will not not be rich” line from this season of Big Little Lies for Laura Dern, who looks super here in a perfect red lip and an amused, clever expression. (I’m not sure if it feels autumnal, but what are you going to do? Also, who even cares when you have those earrings?)
The interview is interesting, too, although Dern doesn’t SAY that much in it at all. (I think this is the sort of thing you mostly notice as a writer — I always read these pieces and place myself in the shoes of whomever is writing it, and try to tell if it was an easy interview or one of those things where you get home and realize that the subject was so charming that you didn’t notice that she didn’t give you anything meaty that you can use.) I did love this story, though:
She tells me a story about something that happened recently to her 17-year-old son, Ellery. He was away on a summer program, and one day at lunch the kids were talking about Big Little Lies. Ellery didn’t know what to say, so he kept quiet. Eventually the others asked if he had seen it. He said he had. Not knowing what to make of his reticence, they asked if he hated it. Ellery confessed: “It’s not that. It’s just…my mom is Renata Klein.”
Dern cracks up imagining this scene. The kids thought he was speaking metaphorically. “They said, ‘Can you imagine?’ ” But Ellery insisted. Dern laughs. “I love that he didn’t say Laura Dern. He said his mom was Renata! I was like, ‘That this happened to you around that character, of all characters.’ Poor thing.”
There’s also sequined jacket in there you probably want to see. Just as an FYI.
