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Laura Dern “made a promise to my mom” to spread awareness about idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a terminal and often misdiagnosed disease, with new campaign Beyond the ScarsThe actress’s mother Diane Ladd was diagnosed with IPF in 2018 and given three to six months to live, but went on to live for over seven years before her death in November 2025Dern talks being a caregiver, her mom’s decision to “share everything” and more in an exclusive conversation with PEOPLE
Laura Dern is making good on a promise.
In 2018, Dern’s mother, Diane Ladd, was diagnosed with a terminal, progressive disease called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and given three to six months to live, plus no real “paths toward how to live with the disease,” the Dern, 58, tells PEOPLE. Last November, Ladd died at home with her daughter-turned-caregiver by her side — over seven years after the “devastating diagnosis.”
Now, the Oscar winner is following through on a vow she made before Ladd’s death: to spread awareness about IPF, which causes irreversible scarring of the lungs. The terminal condition is one of the most common types of interstitial lung disease (ILD), yet there is no known, specific cause, and it is often confused with other conditions — something Ladd experienced firsthand.
“She never wanted anyone to have to naively be in pain without answers. Just too much time was spent like that for both of us,” Dern tells PEOPLE. “Every caregiver has their own experience filled with fear and frustration. Looking for answers with an irreversible disease is quite a journey.”
Dern is sharing her mom’s story through Beyond the Scars, a new awareness campaign with Boehringer Ingelheim, she revealed on Wednesday, Jan. 28.
Laura Dern with mom Diane Ladd.
Courtesy of Laura Dern
Participating in the campaign is a “privilege,” Dern says, because “I made a promise to my mom that I would continue to honor her legacy, and her commitment and service to teaching and advocating for other families going through an ILD.”
Asked about this promise — did it begin as a request, an offer or something else altogether? — Dern chuckles. “We’re talking about Diane Ladd! It was a demand,” she says with a laugh. “I’m privileged to be able to fulfill it and I care deeply as well, but no, it was a required want to make a difference.”
It is difficult to discuss Ladd without addressing her singular, fiery screen presence, perhaps best exemplified by her Oscar-nominated turn as Marietta Fortune in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart. That zeal, her daughter explains, also defined the way Ladd led her life away from the cameras — and fueled her devotion to Beyond the Scars.
“I would say honestly, that same fire and passion that she led her life with as an actor and an artist — no stone unturned, which is why she was a perfect partner to David Lynch — is how she lived her life in all areas,” Dern says. “But I think she had been really struggling for almost a couple of years until she was finally able to get a diagnosis.”
“People dealing with shortness of breath and coughing … [doctors] start to want to categorize it in rather simple ways, including ending up in the hospital a couple of times with pneumonia — until finally, with a chest X-ray and seeing literally like spiderwebs in her lungs, they were able to diagnose her with IPF,” Dern continues. “And I think that was the moment that my mother gave that same fearless, radical passion to being a self-advocate for her own living.”
Laura Dern and Diane Ladd walking together.
Courtesy of Laura Dern
For Dern, things were a bit different, she recalls. “I have to admit, as a caregiver, I’d love to make it sound like I was such a perfect champion for her, but at the beginning, I think I was so traumatized by this diagnosis that I was ready to accept the: ‘Be delicate with your mother. There’s nothing, really, you can do. She has a few months to live.’ ”
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But with a pulmonologist’s help, the mother-daughter duo developed a plan to maintain Ladd’s lung function. “There are medications, and in mom’s case, the walks that we took together, which is what Honey, Baby, Mine was born from,” Dern says, referring to the pair’s joint 2023 memoir. “And it was very painful to take those walks.”
“We started at a couple of minutes and I had to distract her so she wouldn’t yell at me,” Dern recalls with a laugh, “because it was very, very hard for her. So I started getting her talking about things that mattered or things we’d never talked about, and those couple of minutes became up to 15-minute walks, sometimes with having to take breaks on a park bench, and we really got to know each other on a deeper level, and we wanted to share that with families.”
Laura Dern and mom Diane Ladd.
Courtesy of Laura Dern
“She wanted to share that with her grandchildren, as well as others,” Dern adds, “to be reminded of what we can do with our time while living with a disease diagnosis like this, like IPF.”
Throughout those seven years, there were difficult days, Dern says, but there were also special family moments, like when Ladd got to attend the graduation of her granddaughter, Jaya — one of two children Dern shares with ex-husband Ben Harper — and “make a movie and do things that really mattered in her life.”
But perhaps the biggest surprise that followed Ladd’s diagnosis was the way she jumped at the chance to share her diagnosis with the world, Dern says. “I was really touched by that,” the Blue Velvet star tells PEOPLE. “And that really taught me a valuable lesson.”
“I was really moved. My mom is a public figure. She’s very private,” Dern says, adding that following Ladd’s 2018 diagnosis, “there was a lot of dignity around being not in control, I think, and being reliant on oxygen was hard for her.”
Diane Ladd and Laura Dern.
Courtesy of Laura Dern
“And I remember when she first talked about wanting to do this,” Dern says of Beyond the Scars. “I thought, ‘Do you really wanna be so personal about your own lung disease? You can live privately in these last years and not share everything.’ And she’s like, ‘And not have other people be able to learn about it? No, that’s not me.’ ”
Even in her virtual rehabilitation group, the Chinatown actress “was the first one to share her story and get everyone doing the exercises, and making friends,” her daughter recalls with a laugh. “I have not seen that a lot from people who are rightfully protective about their personal story.
“But she always said to me, ‘Laura, if it can help one person, it matters, and now you’re gonna do it for me.’ ”
