The Oscar-winning actor shares profound wisdom the two exchanged in the seven years since Ladd's lung diagnosis.
When Laura Dern’s mother, legendary actor Diane Ladd, was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, doctors told her she had only months to live. The progressive lung disease, marked by permanent scarring and often mistaken for asthma, allergies, or acid reflux, had gone undetected for years.
That was seven years before Ladd’s death on November 3, 2025. In that time, Ladd continued acting, writing, advocating, and celebrating major family milestones. Dern says those years would not have been possible without self-advocacy, specialist care, and a refusal to accept an early endpoint.
Dern, best known for her Academy Award-winning performance in Marriage Story and roles in Big Little Lies, Jurassic Park, and Little Women, recently sat down with a conversation with The Healthy, opening up to share more of her mother’s story as part of Beyond the Scars, an educational awareness campaign launched with pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim to spotlight pulmonary fibrosis and other interstitial lung diseases.
Speaking both as a daughter and caregiver, Dern, 58, says she hopes her family’s experience underscores how frequently lung disease is missed and why early imaging, correct care, and persistence is so important. She tells us that if her mother wanted one legacy, it was making sure other families didn’t have to navigate the same uncertainty alone.
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The Healthy: Thank you so much for doing this interview. We know this is a tender time. Your mom, Diane Ladd, was given three months to live after her diagnosis and then lived a remarkable seven-plus years. What do you think mattered most for her longevity, and what do you want people to know to honor her legacy, like we’re doing today?
Laura Dern: She was incredibly passionate and determined, and she demanded that I spread the word to help others. She really wanted us to do this campaign together because she wanted to speak from her experience as a patient, and she wanted me to speak as a caregiver, because we learned so much.
Her greatest frustration was how long she was misdiagnosed. She wanted people to know that if they’re experiencing anything related to lung health, shortness of breath, for example, or in her case acid reflux, which even led to surgery, they should keep asking questions. In her situation, doctors pushed her toward asthma or allergies. They’d ask, “Were you a smoker?” She’d say no, and they’d respond, “OK, so it’s not lung disease.” But the statistics show that’s simply not true.
What she wanted people to understand first was: get imaging. If it’s lung-related, find a great pulmonologist and advocate for yourself. That’s step one. Then came the diagnosis—idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. The tragedy of that news is that it’s an irreversible disease that causes permanent scarring. Someone told her she had three to six months.
The Healthy: And she lived another seven years.
Laura Dern: What she would want me to say—one of my favorite quotes from her—is: “Instead of dying, I made two movies, did a TV show, wrote an autobiography and a screenplay, and saw both my kids’ kids graduate high school.” We had incredible experiences together. We went on a book tour through the South. All of that was possible because she had a pulmonologist who partnered with her and helped her believe that, with oxygen therapy, pulmonary rehab, certain medications, and incredible determination, she could continue living a purpose-driven life. That’s the emotional message she would want to share—and what I learned as a person, as a woman, and as a caregiver: you never give up on your dreams.
The Healthy: Can you talk about what helped once she was diagnosed and what you found helpful as a caregiver?
Laura Dern: Of course, it depends on the patient and the diagnosis. In her case, in addition to oxygen therapy, pulmonary rehab, and medications, even when she was misdiagnosed, things like asthma inhalers still helped support her lungs at times. She didn’t want to become overly reliant on oxygen, so movement was important to her. We committed to walks. I got her breathing. I made my mother do yoga with me, even attempting breath of fire. Anything that kept her breathing and pushed her a little further each day helped. A two-minute walk became five minutes by the end of the week. By the end of our journey, which became the conversations for our book [Honey, Baby, Mine, published in 2023], we were doing 15-minute walks. Then some days we were back to four minutes, and she would cry. I’d say, “That’s today.” Three days later, we’d do 12 minutes. Over seven and a half years, she learned that every day was different. What she needed from herself—and from me—changed constantly.
The Healthy: Can you talk about your role as a caregiver? What did you learn, and how can families better support a loved one facing a progressive disease like this?
Laura Dern: To me, the greatest superpower is empathy. If I could teach my children—or if schools could teach anything—it would be empathy. It’s what raises caregivers. It’s what allows us to care for one another as human beings. My mother raised me that way, which made me a good caregiver.
That said, being part of the “sandwich generation” can bring out incredibly selfish feelings. Your kids need you. A parent needs you. You’re working. You’re exhausted. In those moments, I truly believed I was the only person who had ever experienced this, and I felt very sorry for myself.
At one point, one of my children needed surgery while my mom was in the hospital. My dad cut his toe. My stepfather was hospitalized. I went into a spiral of, “Why is this happening to me?” That’s when you need to talk to friends. That’s when I wish I’d had Beyond the Scars. Now, when I go on that site, I see families going through exactly what we went through. I didn’t have that understanding then.
There were moments when I minimized her symptoms because I didn’t understand them. I thought she was dealing with asthma, something people live with. I wasn’t yet a skilled caregiver. I was constantly choosing between my child and my parent, and that’s brutal. We don’t talk enough about this.
I also didn’t ask for help. I didn’t say, “I need a nap. I’ve slept in a hospital for three nights. Can someone take the kids to school?” I’d say, “I’m fine,” and then crash. Self-care isn’t optional—it’s essential. We all know the oxygen-mask analogy, but we don’t follow it. My mother understood this deeply. One morning I was trying to take care of her, and she said, “Go to the gym.” I said, “I can’t—I need to make you breakfast.” She said, “I’m fine. Give me a muffin. Take 45 minutes for yourself. You’ll be a better caregiver.” She was right.
The Healthy: Beyond medical treatment, you mentioned all your mom accomplished in those seven years. What role did purpose, creativity, and community play in helping your mom live fully?
Laura Dern: Art was my mother’s passion. Like my dear friend David Lynch, she needed to create. Whether she was acting, writing, or working in service-related advocacy, she needed to feel that her life was making a difference. Even in her final week, from her bedside, she finished a screenplay. Creativity was essential to her sense of purpose and legacy.
Community was just as important. As an only child and a single parent, after my mother’s husband passed, it was just the two of us. One of my biggest mistakes was trying to protect my children by keeping them at a distance. My mother stopped me. She said, “I need them. They’re my joy.” I started scheduling my daughter’s guitar lessons at my mom’s place so she could be part of them. My daughter later told me how meaningful it was to be involved in her grandmother’s care. She said, “Now I know how to take care of you someday.”
The Healthy: You’ve spoken about the importance of caring for yourself as a caregiver. What’s one self-care ritual you try not to skip?
Laura Dern: I wish I could say I never skip it, but I do, especially during a crisis when I need it most. But the most accessible thing any of us can do, anywhere—in a hospital room, in the car, in bed—is breathe. Just breathe. For me, transcendental meditation has been transformative, even though I don’t always practice it consistently. When I remember to meditate and focus on my breath, even for two minutes, I reset. It allows me to show up more present as a mother, a daughter, an actor, and even right here in this conversation. Those practices have helped me the most.
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