Rose McGowan: Budding Rose

Rose McGowan is the queen of self-exposure, whether it's baring her soul in films or baring her body for the paparazzi. Now she'll be revealing her dark side in the very black comedy Jawbreaker.

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She's only been in the business for six years, but 23-year-old Rose McGowan already has a lengthy resume. After getting her first big break as a pissed off alcoholic in Gregg Araki's The Doom Generation (and getting an Independent Spirit Award nomination for her efforts), she played a tart who gets crushed by a garage door in scream. Two turns opposite Ben Affleck followed-as a 50s pinup in Phantoms. She's caused a commotion offscreen, too. At last year's MTV Video Music Awards, she showed up with her rock star provocateur boyfriend Marilyn Manson in a mesh dress that exposed everything underneath, including her leopard-print G-string. All this has given McGowan an edge in the race for hot young roles. Now she's landed a starring role in her first big-screen black comedy, Jawbreaker.

DENNIS HENSLEY: Were you hoping the mesh dress you wore to the MTV Awards could do for you what that safety-pin dress did for Elizabeth Hurley?

ROSE McGOWAN: Sure, I wanted to jump out of the proverbial cake. But I wasn't trying to hold my own with Hugh Grant in an Armani suit. I mean, I'm showing up with Marilyn Manson. What am I going to wear? An evening gown?

Q: What did you think of all the media attention you got?

A: One tabloid ran a picture of us with a caption that read. "Booty and the Beast." We both thought that was funny.

Q: Let's talk about Jawbreaker. Why the title?

A: It's about four high school girls who pull a prank whenever one of them has a birthday. On one birthday we do a kidnapping. We run into our friend's bedroom with masks on and duct tape her arms and legs. I slap a jawbreaker in her mouth and put tape across it. Then we throw her in the trunk and take her to Denny's. But on the way to the restaurant the jawbreaker chokes her to death.

Q: Any fantasies Jawbreaker will make you a bigger star?

A: I think every actor does interviews with David Letterman in their head. At one moment, charming. The next, scintillating. Then lightly flirtatious. Then serious.

Q. Wow, you have that down. Is it true you grew up in the religious commune as River Phoenix?

A: Yeah, and life in Hollywood is nothin' compared with what I went through there.

Q: How has your family reacted to your current way of life?

A: They were strange before and they're strange now. Not in a good or bad way, just strange. My little brother was freaked out about my MTV outfit because all his friends made fun of him at school for it. I feel bad about that, but what am I supposed to do?

Q: What do you like most about Marilyn?

A: His sense of calm. I'm centered, but in a way that a spinning top is centered, with its point on the ground and its body going circles. He's a lot more patient.

Q: Do you think people are intimidated by you?

A: Absolutely. I don't know why. I'm harmless.

Q: Let's get back to movies. On top of Jawbreaker, you have an indie coming out, Southie, which won the American Independent Filmmaker Award at the Seattle Film Festival--

A: Oh! That reminds me of a story I must tell you. While at the festival I enrolled in a seminar about how directors work with actors, which was run by James L. Brooks. James picked a scene from Shampoo for me to do with D.B. Sweeney. I just acted away, crying hysterically. After the festival was over, James told his assistant that he met this amazing actress, and he concocted this whole story about how I was working in a coffee shop and he had discovered me there. Well, the story got back to me, so when I saw James later on the Sony lot, I said, "If you want me to be a coffeeshop girl who you've scooped out of obscurity then damn it, I'm your new coffee grinder!"

Q: What, he didn't see Scream like the rest of the country? Speaking of that film, did you take anything from the set away with you?

A: Yes, a picture of me high-fiving the dummy made in my likeness that gets crushed in the garage door. It was disturbing looking at the dummy, because it was like staring at yourself the moment you die and seeing that pain in your eyes.

Q: What actor who's old enough to be your father would you like to make out with in a movie?

A: Harrison Ford. Hooba-jooba! I have two framed pictures of Harrison and when I go out I put two outfits in front of him and I ask him which one he prefers. He approved of my MTV dress. by the way. So you can blame all the fuss on him.

Q: I was flipping through channels the other night and was surprised to see you on Politically Incorrect. Did you feel nervous when you were on the show?

A: Not at all. The audience was in the palm of my hand. They loved it when I said. "If I were an intern in the White House you bet your ass I would be on Clinton in a second. He's hot. Any room anytime, anywhere."

Q: Name an odd talent that you have.

A: I have an amazing ability to remember nonsense. Who killed Selena? Yolanda Saldivar. Who's Tonya Harding's ex-husband? Jeff Gillooly. I have a photographic memory.

Q: Do you think you're a talented actress?

A: I'm really, really good. This could come oft as egotistical, but you know what? I'm a lot better than anybody knows.

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Dennis Hensley interviewed Johnathon Schaech for the Dec./Jan. 99 issue of Movieline.