Susan Sarandon: On Movies, Men and Motherhood

Q: The blow job scene?

A: [Laughing] Yes. What happened in that scene was a complete diagram of what the rest of the movie was about. Every beat of that scene was very clearly designated. I think it's very hard to be naked in a scene and not be upstaged by your nipples. People don't even hear what you're saying for the first 30 seconds if you're standing there nude, so it has to be for some very specific reason. And you have to know what the scene is about. I remember when we did that scene in White Palace, I was always saying things like, "But how could I be doing that because, really, where are my hands now?"

Q: Don't get me started on this. I go crazy when I watch sex scenes, because they don't have to worry about straining their necks or choking or...

A: Exactly. Thank God Jimmy Spader was such a great person to work with. All these actors who don't mind being unsympathetic are, to me, really the best in the business. Whether it's Jimmy Spader or Chris Walken or Tim Robbins or Jack Nicholson or Robert De Niro or Harvey Keitel, these are the guys who have some depth. The ones that are afraid to have a bad side are just boring.

Q: Let's talk about The Hunger, which lots of men still adore because of that love scene between you and Catherine Deneuve.

A: They changed the ending, which was supposed to be that I die and she lives--that I don't want to be transfused without my permission. For me, it was about whether or not you choose to live forever, if it's a life of addiction. Well, they decided that my character was very likable and that I should live somehow, after setting up every convention for me to die. But I had a great time with both Catherine and [David] Bowie, and I adore Tony [Scott, the director].

Q: What about The Witches of Eastwick? You had originally been offered the rote that eventually went to Cher...

A: Yes, in hindsight I'm proud of myself that I took an absolutely humiliating experience and turned it into a fairly decent performance. I was given my role very shortly before we began shooting.

Q: I wondered whether, considering Jack's rep, the three of you worried who Nicholson thought was the best kisser.

A: Believe me, I was more worried about learning the cello. I learned a lot from Witches of Eastwick, more to do with life lessons than acting. I learned a lot about the business, I learned a lot about blaming yourself for being taken advantage of, and how destructive that can be. And then I worked with [director] George Miller again, so what can I say?

Q: Okay, you're just a glutton for punishment. Lorenzo's Oil, which Miller also directed, is probably the most depressing movie ever made.

A: I knew the story of Lorenzo and I had been in awe of Michaela [Lorenzo's mother] and had been interested in that story for so many years, even before George Miller found it.

Q: Could you believe how hard the critics were on Nick Nolte, how they harped on his accent?

A: No, I don't understand. He, in fact, sounded exactly like the character. I thought it was an incredibly brave performance, to conquer the science and to make it live was remarkable. It was a very dry script.

Q: I know some women who do not believe that Thelma and Louise died at the end of Thelma & Louise.

A: What do they think happened when the car went over the cliff?

Q: I think that there are some women who really felt empowered by those two women, who saw something in them that they'd like to see in themselves. They just couldn't bear that after finally finding their own strength, they had to die.

A: Well, it's a movie convention, a heroic convention, and before I agreed to do it, I said, "I wanna know that I do die, right? You're not gonna have me in Club Med at the end, are you? If the studio tests it in the Valley, you're still not gonna change this, right?" And Ridley [Scott, the director] said, "All right, there's a chance that Thelma [Geena Davis's character] won't die. We'll see when we get there. But you will definitely die, whether you push her out of the car or whatever, you will definitely die at the end.'"

Q: Because jail would have been worse for that character?

A: Yeah, absolutely. And it's like Jules and Jim or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Again, it's a movie convention. The challenge was to make suicide an exhilarating experience. You have to set that up within some kind of heroic context or it won't work. That was a question from the very beginning that worried me. And when I asked for the scene in the desert where Louise gets out and it's quiet and she's just staring and you don't know what she's thinking, but you feel that she's made her mind up. I thought that scene made it clear.

Q: Didn't you convince Ridley to do the scene where Louise trades away her jewelry?

A: Yes. I had lots of ideas, but he bought those two. It's like she was beyond all of the stuff, she just needs to be pure now, and she is kind of getting ready for some kind of rite of passage. I felt that it was my duly to literally and figuratively drive the movie, that I was the one that had the moral crisis, that I was the one who'd killed the man and therefore it had to come to some kind of reckoning. And so, at that point in the film, just to have that little grace note... being an ex-hippie, I liked the ambiguity, not having any dialogue.

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