Diane Keaton has a nice interview in AARP. It’s mainly a reflection on her 50-year career. But she also talks about a few things she doesn’t usually bring up, like updating the public on what her kids are doing and speaking of her brother Randy who struggled with mental illness and substance abuse. She also spoke about her Golden Retriever Reggie, who was a gift from a friend when Diane became an empty nester. Reggie is a big part of Diane’s popular IG page. She’s usually featured destroying some piece of Diane’s clothing or tracking wet footprints all over Diane’s lovely home. But Diane adores her because as she says, “dogs are irresistible.”

On auditioning for The Godfather: “I didn’t even know what The Godfather was. Someone said to me, ‘You’ve got to go and audition for things,’ so I auditioned for the film, and I got the role of Kay Corleone.

On dating: I don’t date. Highly unlikely. I don’t remember anyone calling me, going, ‘This is So-and-So. I’d like to take you out.’ They don’t happen. Of course not.

On her kids: “They’re great,” she says simply. “They’re doing good.” Over the past few years, though, her nest has emptied — Dexter got married and Duke got his own place.

On Reggie: A friend of mine gave her to me. I didn’t even ask for her. He came to me and said, ‘I think you need this dog.’ I was like, ‘OK, I guess?’ Of course, now I just love her. Dogs are irresistible. They’re just idiots. Reggie is a big jerk, and she’s a great jerk, and she’s hilarious.

On her brother Randy’s death: “He passed relatively recently — it’s been a couple of years,” Keaton says, with a catch in her voice. A poet and artist, Randy “had a hard time with the world at large and just in life. He was so delicate in some ways, so sensitive. He was a real artist at heart.”

[From AARP]

I’m friends with Randy’s caregiver. She attended family events with him. We spoke the day after he passed. They were all so destroyed. I didn’t realize Diane had written about him, I’ll probably pick that book up. I can tell you that the way Diane treated my friend as her employer is why I have such a soft spot for her. I was shocked to learn that Diane’s daughter Dexter is 27 and her son Duke is 22. Since she rarely talks about them, I’d forgotten they were grown now. I still had them as teens in my mind.

As for Reggie, she’s such a love. I always forget which is the doofus breed: retrievers or labs? It’s the retrievers, though, I think. They really are loveable oafs. It doesn’t really matter how bright a dog is, we tend to call them with dunce-like labels. Affectionately, but hardly complimentary. My husband calls our dogs brain-trust or lunkheads and yet they frighten me with how smart they are. Smart enough to know exactly when to play dumb. And hilarious, like Diane said. My girl pup sat next to me on the couch this AM. I turned to her and smiled, and she put her paw in my face and then looked confused. They really are ridiculous.

If anyone in Southern California needs some ridiculous in their life, here’s your chance. DoVE Project, who rescues beautiful dogs from the Meat Trade in South Korea has an adoption event tomorrow. If you aren’t ready to adopt, there is a Foster Family outreach event on April 2 where you can learn all about that.

Photo credit: Cover Images and Instagram