Lara Flynn Boyle was a gossip staple back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. She was in relationships with Kyle MacLachlan, David Spade and, most famously, Jack Nicholson, and there was rampant speculation about her weight. After she and Nicholson broke up for good in 2004, Lara took a step back from the Hollywood scene. She married her husband Donald Ray Thomas in 2006. Since then, she and Thomas have been living in Texas part-time with their rescue dog named Shrimp.
Despite having a much lower profile over the last two decades, Lara’s popped up here and there, appearing in a handful of movies and occasionally, in paparazzi shots. Lara’s last movie was four years ago, something she blames the pandemic for. On July 5, her new movie, Mother, Couch will be out for a limited run. People recently sat down with Lara to catch up and talk to her love of Hollywood, being a tabloid fixture, ageism in the biz, and more.
She loves “everything” about Hollywood: [Boyle, 54, explains] why she changed her mind and nixed her initial suggestion for her PEOPLE interview — a nondescript L.A. diner that serves tuna melts and apple pie — and opted for the glamorous Sunset Boulevard hot spot that opened in 1941, the year Citizen Kane premiered. “I don’t have to be like, ‘Look where I go. I’m normal,’” says Boyle. “I love Hollywood. I love everything about Hollywood.” The fact that Boyle is still so enthusiastic about show business is a testament to her resilience — she’s a “scrapper,” she says several times during an hour-long chat.
She had her own #MeToo experiences: “I’ve been in situations that were not called for. I’ve walked out of meetings and had repercussions for it,” she says, declining to name names. “We all go through it.”
On tabloids publishing unflattering pictures of her: Even after Boyle got married to Texas real estate developer Donald Ray Thomas, 58, in 2006 and began working less, paparazzi still hounded her. They snapped pictures while she took out the trash and, in one unflattering instance, while she appeared to take a swig from a bottle of Johnnie Walker whiskey in her car. Tabloids were all too happy to publish the photos alongside sensational headlines.
No complaining or leaving: “I never wanted to bow out [of Hollywood]. Any moment I was feeling down or sorry for myself, I made sure I did not complain,” she says while sipping on a cappuccino. “My mom used to sometimes bring me articles about other actresses to show me I’m not the only one getting a raw deal.”
She was cast in Mother, Couch because the director saw her tabloids: It’s that tabloid attention that intrigued writer-director Niclas Larsson, who cast Boyle in Mother, Couch. Larsson grew up in Sweden reading tabloids at his mother’s hair salon and was fascinated by Boyle. “The only type of literature I was exposed to between the age of 5 to maybe 10 was gossip magazines. And Lara was on the cover a lot. I’m like, ‘What’s up with Lara?’ What’s up with the excellent actor Lara Flynn Boyle?’
No one can imagine what women in the late 90s went through: I knew I needed someone who physically and mentally lived through something,” says Larsson. “I don’t think anyone can imagine what it is like to go through what a lot of women went through in the late ’90s, early 2000s.”
No more Hollywood boyfriends or booze: Before she met Thomas, Boyle dated her Twin Peaks costar Kyle MacLachlan, Saturday Night Live alum David Spade and then Nicholson on and off from 1999 into the early 2000s. “I left with a bang when it came to actors,” she says of the three-time Oscar winner. “Then I went, ‘Okay, I’m done now.’ ”
She said the same about alcohol around five years ago. “Those disco boots, they’ve had their time,” says Boyle. If there was an impetus to stop, Boyle isn’t telling. “Some people are allergic to it; some people are un-allergic to it,” she says.
Ageism is “human nature: From the outside, I say, it seems things have become more inclusive. Before she speaks, she lets out a long, world-weary laugh. “Not at all,” she says. “The thing that gets my goat is when actresses talk about ageism in Hollywood. Ageism is human nature. It’s not Hollywood’s fault. It’s all of our fault. Myself included. I like looking at pretty people on the camera.”
She’s ready for her close-up but doesn’t want to see it: One person she does not enjoy watching: herself. “If you want to call me Norma Desmond, go for it,” she quips. “Whenever I catch a reflection of myself in a lens, I’m like, ‘Oh, cut.’ ”
Oh man, some of what she says…it feels like there’s so much to unpack there. Larsson is right about famous women in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. Thinking back to that period of time, they really went through so much unfair scrutiny and judgment as a part of tabloid culture. I feel so badly for buying into it all so much when I was much younger. Beauty standards in that time period messed so many of us normies up, thinking that’s what we had to look like to be attractive. I can only imagine how bad it was for actresses who were having their pictures taken and talked about all of the time. I remember seeing that picture of her drinking from the Johnnie Walker bottle in her car and feeling sorry for her, hoping she got some help. I’m glad she’s stopped drinking.
As for ageism, while it does seem like there are more roles for more mature-aged actresses nowadays, I recognize that there’s still a lot of room for improvement. However, I don’t know if it’s “human nature” so much as what Hollywood perceives as marketability. I really don’t think most people prefer looking at “pretty people” on screens. I just want good story content and acting. I feel like viewers are in an era where we appreciate seeing people who look like us represented in our media and it hasn’t gone completely unnoticed. Also, it’s sorta telling the way Lara says she can’t stand to watch herself on screen. She may be a “scrapper” but it sure feels like she has a lot of scars from old wounds that never healed properly.
‘Twin Peaks’ Star Lara Flynn Boyle Was a Tabloid Target for Years. The Attention Helped Land Her a New Movie (Exclusive) https://t.co/ZlSLV8xspr
— People (@people) July 2, 2024
Photos credit: Media Punch/INSTARimages.com, FayesVision / Wenn / Avalon and via Twitter