Sarah Paulson was overcome with emotion as she remembered her “dear friend” Diane Keaton.
Paulson, 50, joined Kim Kardashian and other stars of their new Hulu legal drama, All’s Fair, at its world premiere in Los Angeles on Thursday, October 16, and offered brief comments about Keaton’s death on the red carpet.
“I was incredibly close to her, and this is a profoundly sad time for me,” Paulson told The Hollywood Reporter. “I can’t talk about it in any way that’s articulate other than to say that for all you knew and loved about her as a performer, she was even more as a friend.”
In an interview with Access Hollywood, Paulson teared up as she was asked about her late friend and The Other Sister costar.
Inside Sarah Paulson and Late Diane Keaton’s Friendship
“She was a very dear friend of mine. Uh, so it’s not something I’m able to talk about yet,” Paulson responded when asked about Keaton’s lasting legacy.
“I’m not able to talk about it,” she reiterated. “All I can say, and I have been saying tonight, which is important to me to communicate, is that, what you thought she was as a performer, she was even more spectacular as a human being.”
Paulson’s voice then broke as she said she was “the luckiest person in the world to have had her in my life the way that I did.”
Paulson and Keaton formed a close bond while starring together in The Other Sister, released in 1999, and remained friends for decades.
The American Horror Story actress spoke highly of her longtime friend just last month in an interview with InStyle that resurfaced following Keaton’s death.
“She played my mother in a movie in my first sort of studio movie,” Paulson said. “It was a really thrilling experience and she was the most generous, just playful, fun, alive performer and really taught me the power of beats in a scene. And I was so scared, and she really took me under her wing and we’ve been really good friends ever since. She’s a filmmaker as well. She’s a fashion icon. She’s an absolute iconoclast. And I feel very lucky to call her a dear friend.”
Keaton died at age 79 on Saturday, October 11, after suffering from pneumonia.
Inside the Final Years of Diane Keaton’s Life Before Her Death at 79
“The Keaton family are very grateful for the extraordinary messages of love and support they have received these past few days on behalf of their beloved Diane, who passed away from pneumonia on October 11,” the Oscar winner’s family said in a statement to People on Wednesday, October 15. “She loved her animals and she was steadfast in her support of the unhoused community, so any donations in her memory to a local food bank or an animal shelter would be a wonderful and much appreciated tribute to her.”
A death certificate obtained by People listed Keaton’s cause of death as primary bacterial pneumonia. The document said the actress was cremated on Tuesday, October 14.
