Laura Dern Says Her Relationship With Her Ex-Husband Influenced Her ‘Marriage Story’ Performance
Laura Dern has been a Hollywood mainstay for three decades. Born into a show business family, Dern became an acclaimed presence in the entertainment industry by the time she was a young woman. During the course of her career, she has received numerous awards and accolades, including an Academy Award for her work in the movie Marriage Story. Dern drew from very personal experiences when filming the hit project. She revealed that she was directly inspired by her long-term marriage to musician Ben Harper and their subsequent split.
When did Laura Dern and ex-husband Ben Harper get married?
Dern’s first high-profile relationship was with actor and writer Billy Bob Thornton. They started dating in 1997, getting engaged not long after they embarked on their romance. Unfortunately, Dern and Thornton’s romance ended in spectacular fashion when Thornton left her for Angelina Jolie. Not long after Thornton took up with Jolie, however, Dern found love again, with musician Ben Harper.
After the two met at one of Harper’s concerts in 2000, they became a hot item. Just one year after they started dating, Dern and Harper welcomed a son named Ellery Walker in 2001. Then came a daughter in late 2004. Dern and Harper made their union official in December 2005, when they tied the knot in a small ceremony at their home in Los Angeles, California. For the next few years, Harper and Dern lived their lives as professionals, all while raising their children in privacy.
How Laura Dern’s divorce affected ‘Marriage Story’
In 2010, Harper filed for divorce, only to reconcile with Dern for a while. Eventually, however, the two decided to split for good, and in 2013, the divorce between the couple was finalized. All in all, Dern and Harper had been together for 13 years — a virtual lifetime in Hollywood. Still, they remained friendly after their divorce, continuing to co-parent their two children together as a united front.
Dern has rarely spoken out about the divorce. But she did reveal in 2020 that she used her relationship with Harper as inspiration for her performance in the hit movie Marriage Story. As reported by Hollywood Life, Dern admitted “As [director Noah Baumbach] first said about the story when we first talked about it, he said, ‘I want to tell a love story where endings are not failures.’ And that really moved me and struck me deeply.”
The actor went on. “So to my amazing divorced parents, and my amazing step-parents, and my amazing children—who came from love despite an ending in a marriage—we’re so privileged to redefine what family looks like,” she finished.
Did Laura Dern get married again after her divorce?
In the years since Dern’s divorce from Harper, she has remained in the spotlight, tackling even bigger projects and continuing to earn critical acclaim. However, when it comes to romance, she has kept things under the radar. While she was linked to NBA player Baron Davis in 2017, Dern has not married again and has not publicly spoken out about any new romances.
Still, the veteran actor hasn’t ruled anything out. She once told The Telegraph that “Love means a lot to me, and I love loving and I love boys.” She also said that she doesn’t have any preconceived notions about what love might look like in the future. “Maybe I should get a checklist – I’ve never had one,” she shared. “But love always redefines itself, doesn’t it?”
