NEW YORK -- Just because Diane Lane admits to living a charmed life doesn't mean she considers it's been a cakewalk.

"I've been working since I had no front teeth," says

Lane, 34. "I started leaving home when I was seven to tour with a children's theatre group.

"I was hitting all the international theatre festivals in Europe," she recalls, adding: "I don't know how my parents could have let me go.

"I'm a parent now and I wouldn't do it. There is a place and a time for innocence and I want to protect it for my daughter for as long as possible."

Lane's five-year-old daughter Eleanor is from her marriage to actor Christopher Lambert.

The couple divorced in 1992 shortly after they starred together in the thriller Knight Moves. He married model Jaimyse in February.

"Eleanor went to the wedding. I didn't. The breakup wasn't that amicable.

"I gave my whole 20s to Christopher.

"I'm not completely soured on marriage, but I've learned that it takes a lot of trust. It's worth it when things really work out," Lane says.

Before she met and married Lambert, Lane had brief affairs with Timothy Hutton, Matt Dillon and Chris Atkins, her co-stars in such movies as Rumble Fish, The Outsiders, The Child Bride of Short Creek and The Big Town.

"I didn't go into marriage with too many illusions. My parents had big fights even after they were divorced.

"As a result, I lost the illusion of perfect families pretty early on."

Lane is recalling her own relationship and family woes because such traumas are at the heart of her new film, A Walk on the Moon -- opening Friday in Calgary.

In this romantic drama set in the summer of 1969, Lane plays Pearl, a Jewish housewife who has an affair with a hippie (Viggo Mortensen) who takes her to Woodstock.

"I can relate to Pearl and especially to her desire for a second chance at adolescence.

"I certainly can understand her emotional needs for fulfilment and for a sense of abandon."

The early test screenings of A Walk on the Moon resulted in Lane receiving letters from numerous women.

"They wanted to thank me for showing that mothers and wives can be sensual and objects of desire as well as younger women.

"Mature women are gratified to be seen as sex symbols.

"Movies traditionally glorify young women's sexuality at the expense of mature women."

One of the more sensual scenes in A Walk on the Moon finds Lane and Mortensen having sex under a mountain waterfall. The scene was shot in a forest reserve in Quebec.

"If Viggo and I convince people we're enjoying every second of that encounter we've really done our job as actors," she says.

"It was freezing in that river. The water was filled with debris and cigarette butts and the rocks were covered in little worms."

Lane was born in New York and first appeared on stage at age six in a production of Medea.

At 14, she starred opposite Laurence Olivier in A Little Romance, playing a teenager on the loose in Paris.

She ended up on the cover of Time magazine and quickly became the most sought-after starlet of her day.

"I had so many great film offers and I didn't even really understand what acting was all about.

"Even more confusing for me was the nagging feeling that being an actress was not my decision.

"My father was an acting coach and I felt he'd pushed me into a profession he'd always wished he'd had.

"It's no wonder I ended up in the offices of a few shrinks."

Lane just completed shooting My Dog Skip with Kevin Bacon and Luke Wilson -- a film she calls "Old Yeller for the new millennium.

"I did it for my daughter. I want to be able to take her to one of my movies. I certainly won't be rushing off with her to see Murder at 1600, Judge Dredd or Wild Bill."


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