Where actress Jane Seymour houses her many talents
Trying to pin down Jane Seymour can be like trying to interpret an abstract painting — one person may see something completely different from the next.
To many, she’s the actress famous for roles such as Dr. Michaela Quinn and the Bond girl Solitaire. But she’s also a proficient painter, author, philanthropist and designer of the Open Hearts jewelry collection.
So it’s no surprise that Seymour’s favorite room — her bedroom in her modern, 6,300-square-foot Tudor-style home, perched on a coastal hill in Malibu — also reflects that broad spectrum of skills and interests.
“There’s art nouveau, there’s Hollywood glam, there’s beach house, there’s modern art. I wanted the room to be a mixture of everything I love,” said Seymour, 68, who co-stars in the newly released second season of “The Kominsky Method,” on Netflix.
High ceilings and a wide-open floor plan give the room a grand but breathable air — indoor flowing effortlessly to outdoors, with the western wall consisting entirely of windows and a sliding glass door, to show off the breathtaking Malibu coast.
Tokens of Seymour’s illustrious and diverse career inhabit the room. Various acting awards rest above a cozy white-brick fireplace, where elegant, traditional-style chairs create an alcove for intimate conversations.
Built-in shelves next to the bed display finely crafted vases from all over the world, personal charcoal sketches, a gleaming Open Hearts statuette and rows of photographs of Seymour with family and the likes of Willie Nelson and Bradley Cooper.
The rich colors of select paintings contrast with the off-white palette of the walls, Saxony carpet and furniture, which includes a flowing, champagne-colored chaise lounge — a collaboration between Seymour and furniture designer Michael Amini.
The Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning actress said making a home is not so different from her other endeavors, in that all must be done with an open heart. “My mother always said to me, ‘Darling, if you can open your heart and reach out, you’ll have purpose, and when you have purpose your heart just fills.’”
Why is this your favorite room?
It’s my cocoon. This is where I contemplate life. It’s where I wake up and see the magnificence of the world around me — that beautiful ocean, nature, the birds flying, and the dolphins jumping, and the whales spouting, and I just feel an enormous sense of gratitude.
What is your aesthetic style?
My aesthetic is to bring the outside in and to have a place that I feel like I’m not closed in, that I’m part of the universe. As far as color, I like the off-white palette because the color I want in here is in the artwork and people’s faces and clothing and flowers and photographs.
You do have a lot of wonderful photographs.
The house is absolutely riddled with framed pictures, but I love it. I walk around and I go, “Oh, look, there’s June and Johnny Cash,” or, “Oh, look, all my cousins.” My past is all around me. I would never change my past, as painful as it might have been, because it made me who I am today.
Do you have a similar philosophy when designing a room versus a piece of jewelry, or a painting?
I often refer to the “j” and “s” of Jane Seymour as being the two things that matter most to me in life and my work: joy and serenity. The exuberance of life, the fun, the excitement, and then the chance to be spiritual and at peace with the planet.
Favorite memory in here?
I have so many good memories in this room. This is the room where I came back from the hospital with the twins — they were low birth weight; one of them almost died on us. I remember sitting in this room, staring out at the ocean, feeding them both and just feeling incredibly fortunate.
