The indomitable Diane Keaton covers the April issue of AARP at the age of 66 years. She’s currently promoting a new ensemble comedy film called Darling Companion, which also stars Kevin Kline, who describes the movie as “like The Big Chill for the AARP set.” I’ll let that summation stand on its own, but let’s talk about the magazine cover for just a moment. Diane has always had a rather offbeat sense of style (and an unbreakable affection for hats), but this ensemble just screams “hipster pilgrim” to me. I don’t know how else to put it. At any rate, Diane still gives good interview and also elaborates a little bit more about her hardcore bulimic experience as well as giving her thoughtful considerations on a variety of other subjects:

More on bulimia: “With bulimia, I never expected sympathy or for people to understand, What I cared about was the secret I kept. It felt like a burden. I never told my mother. But when I finally told my sisters many years after the fact, they weren’t that shocked. My sister Robin said, ‘Yeah, you ate a lot of hamburgers back then.’ It’s amazing how the dark secrets inside us don’t matter much to the outside world.”

On aging: “Everything’s throwing me punches from left and right, but it’s certainly been an amazing adventure. It’s all unbelievable. Every little bit of it. I look back on experiences like that and think, ‘Did I really do that?’ It’s a big collage. A piece here, a piece there. That’s my life. The best part is that I’m still here and, because the end is in sight, I treasure it all more.”

On plastic surgery: “I haven’t had it, but never say never. Because when you do, you are definitely going to go there. I said I would never have intercourse before I was married, and I did. I said I would never go to a psychiatrist, and I spent much of my life in psychoanalysis. I’ve done all kinds of things I said I wouldn’t do and, of course, now I’m glad. Thrilled.”

On romance: “It’s not something I can visualize right now. The best relationships develop out of friendships. That’s the shame. At this stage I don’t correlate any of the friendships I have with sex, and, honestly, once you bring sex into a friendship — Ooh! Whew! Oh! — that’s a slippery slope into disaster.”

On single parenthood: “As a parent I provide all I can, but I think in the best possible scenario you need to have a man.”

[From AARP]

The interview is quite lengthy, and I’d recommend it as a full read for all Keaton fans. While what she’s said about single parenthood could be construed as slightly controversial, I think she’s making a more obvious point about things being easier with another set of helping hands along. Nearly everything is easier with a partner, and parenting is such a difficult and endless stream of tasks already, let alone while trying to do it without help. Also, I hope she never gets plastic surgery. Diane is one of the last naturally aging babes out there.

Photos courtesy of AARP