Diane Keaton Calls 1 Role the ‘Strangest Thing to Ever Happen’ to Her
Diane Keaton has been starring in films for five decades, taking on iconic role after role. In her almost 60 films, she has worked with actors like Woody Allen, Steve Martin, Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn, Warren Beatty, Al Pacino, and Michael Douglas. The list goes on and on.
Keaton grew up in Highland Park, CA, and got the acting bug at age 6 when she saw her mother crowned Mrs. Highland Park. It was then that she knew she wanted to be a famous movie star.
Diane Keaton’s career
Keaton’s career began at age 19 when she moved to New York to study acting. Her first role was in Hair on Broadway. Soon after, she was working with Woody Allen on the stage and film versions of Play It Again, Sam. Her next role was in The Godfather.
Six years later, she teamed up with Allen again in Annie Hall. She not only won an Oscar for the film, but she also sparked a fashion trend with the oversized menswear she wore in the movie. She was an Academy Award nominee three more times in her career so far.
Some of her many notable roles were in Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), Reds (1981), Father of the Bride (1991), The First Wives Club (1996), and Something’s Gotta Give (2003). Keaton also starred in many Woody Allen movies such as Sleeper, Love and Death, Interiors, Manhattan, and Manhattan Murder Mystery.
The Annie Hall actress has written three memoirs.
Getting this role was ‘strangest thing’ to ever happen to Diane Keaton
The Godfather is one of the most well-known films of all time. It was based on Mario Puzo’s novel of the same name, but Keaton hadn’t read the book when she auditioned for the part of Kay Adams-Corleone, the wife of Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone.
“I didn’t even know what The Godfather was,” she recalls. “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,” the actress told AARP.
Keaton marked the 50th anniversary of the film with an Instagram video where she narrated clips from her audition with Pacino. She said about being cast in the film, “That was the strangest thing to ever happen to me in my whole life,” because she was a comic actress.
She went on to say, “After that, things were different.” It was then that her career took off.
What is the actor doing now?
The 77-year-old actress is still going strong. Her latest film, Book Club, The Next Chapter is set to be released on May 12, 2023. It is the sequel to 2018’s Book Club which starred Keaton along with Jane Fonda, Candace Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen.
In August 2022 The Godfather star was honored with a ceremony to place her handprints and footprints at the TCL Chinese Theatre.
The actress never married but had high-profile relationships with Warren Beatty, Al Pacino, and Woody Allen. She adopted her daughter Dexter when she was 50, and her son Duke five years later.
