The Screen Sirens weigh up how the new film Hampstead compares to Diane Keaton’s other movies.

Hampstead is a romantic comedy starring Diane Keaton and Brendan Gleeson, set in Hampstead Village, London, home to the beautiful Heath, a quiet piece of countryside in the middle of the metropolis. Living on the edge of the Heath is American widow Emily Walters (Keaton), who can’t quite focus on the things that need attention in her life, like her lovely old apartment, her finances or even her son. Everything changes when she meets the eccentric, unkempt Donald (Gleeson), who has lived harmoniously on the Heath for 17 years in a ramshackle hut. Now his lifestyle is under threat as property developers use heavy-handed tactics in an attempt to evict him. As Emily steps up to defend Donald in the escalating battle, she soon finds that, despite his gruff exterior, there is something gentle and alluring about Donald.

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Diane Keaton Fun Facts

• Age 71, born in Los Angeles California
• One Oscar win (Best Actress in a Leading Role, Annie Hall 1978) and 31 other wins and 53 nominations.
• Her birth name is Diane Hall. She changed her last name to her mother’s maiden name as there was already another Diane Hall in the Actors’ Guild. According to her, Michael Keaton had a similar problem when entering the Guild (his birth name is Michael Douglas) though he picked “Keaton” because he was a fan of Diane.

• Diane Keaton has starred in eight Woody Allen movies. Woody Allen has said of her, “In real life, Keaton believes in God. But she also believes that the radio works because there are tiny people inside it.”
• Two of her four Oscar-nominated roles were directed by her boyfriends at the time: Annie Hall (1977) (which won her an Oscar) was directed by Woody Allen and Reds (1981) was directed by Warren Beatty.
• She has a red wine label called ‘The Keaton’ which is designed to be served on ice. “It’s not fancy,” she says. “But neither am I.”

• • Diane Keaton starred alongside Bette Midler and Goldie Hawn in The First Wives Club in 1996, the trio are in talks to reunite in a TV series called Divanation.
    
  • In a blog for the Huffington Post about turning 60 she wrote : “I’ve spent a lot of my life worrying — especially when I was younger. I used to listen to Judy Garland all the time — I love Judy Garland and her music. But I started to realize that if you keep singing like that, singing songs of being victimized by love over and over and over again, it can’t help but have a profound effect on your life. At a certain point, you’re programming yourself to become a victim of love. And I decided that that wasn’t for me, so I forged ahead. And I feel like I’ve managed to avoid becoming a victim to that particular kind of love.”

• In the Neon series The Young Pope she plays Sister Mary she plays Pope Pius XIII’s right hand woman (Jude Law). In the critically acclaimed series she’s been described as ‘the millennials’ nun’