Laura Dern was always too "scared" to dry drugs.
The 52-year-old actress – who is the daughter of actors Diane Ladd and Bruce Dern – began her own career when she was just seven years old and though she "saw a lot" growing up, she thinks being exposed to people being under the influence when she was very young proved to be a great deterrent for her.
She told AnOther magazine: ""I saw a lo but I was really uninterested in drugs. I was really scared by them.
" I knew addicts at a young age and there was nothing sexy or cool about that, at all.
"I think if you see drugs and alcohol very young, it’s a great cautionary tale.
"I felt like my rebellion was to become my own artist, and I knew that if I became addicted to something, that was going to keep me from the place I wanted to get. So that’s where I put my energy."
The ‘Little Women’ star – who has 18-year-old son Ellery and 15-year-old daughter Jaya with ex-husband Ben Harper – may have been acting from a young age, but she was also "forced" to stay at school and be fully engaged in student life, which she is thankful for.
She said: "I was raised very strictly by my mom and my Southern grandmother. There was no rebelling at home.
"My mom really forced me to stay at school. I had to be on one team at least, I had to be in student government, I had to get As and Bs, and then I could be acting. So it wasn’t easy, which was really smart of her."
By her early teens, Laura was much taller than many of her classmates and she admitted it made her feel "geeky and awkward", but it was also "confusing" as she received more male attention when she was working.
She said: "For sure it affected me. I didn’t fit in at school because that trait was geeky and awkward.
"But then I went to work and that trait was womanly. So I think, in terms of boys and men, it was confusing – not getting attention from any boy, but getting lots of attention from men at way too young an age."
The ‘Marriage Story’ actress is thankful she was very "protected" when she was auditioning as a teenager because some of the practices wouldn’t be allowed now.
She explained: "I was lucky to be mostly very protected. Because it was crazy then.
"At 13 I would audition alone in hotel rooms with directors – who were lovely – but that was the way you did it.
"You went into the lobby at the Chateau [Marmont] and someone said, ‘You can go up to the room now,’ and the director’s waiting and you sit on a bed and read through the scene together.
"Luckily that wouldn’t happen now, for either the filmmaker or the young actress."
Laura Dern was ‘scared’ by drugs
