INT: Rose McGowan

The
first time I saw Rose McGowan was in the outrageously f*cked up
little film called THE DOOM GENERATION.
I was blown away by her utterly unbelievably assured sense of
humor and crude charm. This
girl was one to watch. Soon
after that, she made for one of the best horror victims ever in
SCREAM and soon had many copycats of the tough chick who ends up
biting it. For awhile,
it seemed she would become a b-movie queen with DEVIL IN THE FLESH
and JAWBREAKER.

Then
there was TV’s “Charmed” where she replaced Shannen Doherty and
she stayed for five seasons. And
now, thanks to Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino she gets to
kick some serious ass with a machine gun leg.
In GRINDHOUSE,
she gives one helluva performance. Her
work in PLANET TERROR is nothing short of amazing, bringing real
depth and edge to Cherry Darling, along with an all-star cast that
make GRINDHOUSE one of the most outrageous movie experiences you
will have this year.

Well,
lucky for me, I got a chance to go one-on-one with Ms.
McGowan for the second time. With
the release of JAWBREAKER, I had dragged my wife just to get
Rose’s autograph — I’ve
got a very cool wife. Back
then, she was incredibly nice and charming.
So it was no surprise that she is not only beautiful, but she
is also smart, funny, and every other positive thing that I could
think of. Yes, I’m a fan and
after sitting down to talk about movies, celebrity, running around
with a machine gun leg and some dude dragging his wife with him to
get her autograph, I had an fantastic time.

Rose
is very outspoken and honest but there is no pretension here.
Hey, she offered me some coffee when I arrived.
I was a fan of hers before, and now she is just an awesome
lady that I feel very lucky to have been able to hang out and shoot
the shit with. And as for
Cherry Darling… there is something very sexy about a woman with a
machine gun leg and a killer survival instinct… Is that wrong?
You won’t think so when you see GRINDHOUSE.

Rose
McGowan

So
I’ve gotta tell you something.
About the time of “Jawbreaker” I made my wife drive over
an hour to

Costa Mesa

[

California

] just to have you sign an autograph.

Awww…
was I in the…?

Remember,
the mall…?

Was
that

Orange

County

?

Yes.

I
think that’s the only time I’ve ever done a signing anywhere.

Yeah
and I said, ‘You know honey… we have to go… I mean,
we HAVE to go.’ [A high five happens]
And it’s my birthday tomorrow…

Happy
birthday… kick ass!

So
it’s a great weekend.

I
love Courtney Shane [Her character from “Jawbreaker”], she was
hilarious. She was very
misunderstood. People
said she was so evil and I say, well, she was just a sociopath.
And not to let sociopaths off the hook because O.J. [Simpson]
certainly did it, but he doesn’t think he did it.

Yeah.

And
people are like, she was diabolical… yes, but accidentally.
She didn’t think so. I
actually based it on a Gene Tierney character in “Leave Her to
Heaven”.

Really?

And
she… it was just beautifully shot, really funny movie, I mean not
funny intentionally but, a little bit.
She marries a guy who has this little crippled son named
Timmy and she basically starts 86’ing anything in her life that
takes any time away from them, you know, for the husband and wife.
And so at one point she pushes Timmy off a cliff or
something… into a lake. And
he says, ‘but why, why did you do it?’, ‘but darling, I
thought we needed more time alone.’ So I completely based it on
that.

Do
you dwell into the dark side a lot?

No.

Really?

Not
at all. I think things
are… in fact I was just telling my publicist about this website, cuteoverload.com,
that’s my favorite. It’s
just all cute animals and puppies and miniature horses.
I have a bursting huge file on my desktop of just cute baby
animal photos.

Yeah.
I would have just thought, you know, gothic stuff…

I’ve
never been gothic in my life, it’s hilarious.
No, no, no. Cute
baby puppies, and I spend hours perusing baby Boston Terriers
on-line.

You
know what I found cool about you back at the “Jawbreaker”
experience is that, I walked in and said, ‘I’m a big fan of
yours’ and you were like, ‘Really?’ [Surprised].

I’m
kind of still like, ‘Really?’ That was more with “Charmed”,
“Charmed” is hilarious to me because you know there’s like a
big writer at Vanity Fair that loves the show and a seventy-five
year old, gruff

New York

cabbie and they start telling me lines from the show.
It’s such a peripatetic audience, it’s so all over, so
when somebody is… you know, it’s still… it’s just anybody,
you’re just wandering around, you’re in your own head.
If you’re in the aisle at the supermarket, you’re in your
own brain and somebody comes up from the outside and I always kind
of jump and go, really… It just startles me because I’m like
anybody, you know…

Yeah.

Do
I need five lemons… and so the outside world… it’s funny, I
never… I don’t really ever think about people ‘liking me’.
I probably think about people disliking me.
[Laughing]

Well
that’s…

I
think that’s human nature…

Yeah…

If
you get fifty compliments and one mean thing you remember the mean
thing.

And
you have had your fair share of crap thrown at you in the media.

No,
I think, you know people never know what somebody’s going through
and I’ve learned a lot about the gray area.
I used to be very black and white as well, like this is right
and this is wrong and the thing is, nobody knows if my dad’s
really sick or this is happening but go for it… make fun of me for
bad toe-nail polish cuz it makes you happy.

Yeah.

Does
that make you feel better about yourself, like, how does that
actually affect your life as a human being?

People
do get excited about seeing other people’s demise.

Obviously
you could take it back to the gladiators; you could take it back to
anything, just society in general.
I think so much of… you know it’s interesting, like,
‘well, they wanted to become actors so they deserve to be taken
down a peg.’ Wait a second, I wasn’t trying to be an actor…
can’t I just skip out on that whole thing. [Laughing] Hey, how
about focus on others. [Laughing]
No, but it’s very
“Lord of the Flies”-esque too.

Yes
it is.

Very
much the media and just people in general… [An ice bucket on the
counter makes a noise as the ice melts] [We pause looking at the
water] Exactly! The ice
bucket concurred.

Yes,
exactly.

I
think that so much of it is so “Lord of the Flies”, one person
piles on and you see everybody else doing it as well.
And the thing is, as I think it’s easier for people to do
that then reflect upon themselves and what things they’re maybe or
maybe not doing right in their lives.

Now
with “Grindhouse”, was it always planned that you’d be in both
films?

No,
I auditioned for Quentin’s twice; [I] had to go back twice while I
was shooting “Planet Terror”.
So no, I did not; it was not a forgone conclusion.

Was
it fun being able to do both films?

Absolutely…
it was definitely a big arc.

What
was it like working with Kurt Russell in “Death Proof”?

It
was great. And what’s
interesting actually, is that, it’s almost the way it’s been cut
I have two different roles in “Death Proof” because Quentin
wrote a 130 page script which is really about two hours so he had to
condense it for this. But
once it’s on DVD and the International release is a lot longer…
and I have a lot more stuff with Kurt which develops his character a
lot more.

In
the bar?

Yeah,
he and I were primarily together the whole time, that was pretty
much all of our scenes. Other
than his stuff out on the porch, it was all he and I.
So that will be seen a lot more but as it is its interesting
because right now I’m playing the character of the girl who
you’re like, “Don’t go in the woods you dumbass!” [Laughing]
“You’re going to get killed by the guy with the axe!” and now
I’m playing, “Don’t go in the car you dumbass!” [Laughing]
But once you see the longer version of it, you kind of understand
why I’m getting in the car. Currently,
she’s the girl you’re going to yell at, basically.

What
about the machine gun leg in “Planet Terror”, what did you use
for it?

I
had a really heavy gray cast and it kind of had like a ball bearing
on the heel, so if you had a table leg, or a machine gun or a rifle,
you would have a little nub so that was the ball bearing.
And my toes were pointed in the air so I thought that maybe
my Achilles tendon was going to snap.
And the other side is a four-inch high heeled boot.

How
did you walk like that?

Very
awkwardly… how did I run like that, how did I jump like that, how
did I role like that… yeah.

How
did you fly like that?

I
love flying.

Did
you have a crane or something?

Nah,
I was on wires, it wasn’t a crane.
But it was funny because I had to run to get up enough speed
to be flown over the wall. So
of course I had like the four-inch heel so…

Now
when I got to see “Grindhouse”, it reminded me of the first time
I saw you at a
midnight
showing of “The Doom Generation”.

I
love that movie. I had
no idea what I was doing, I mean I’d never done a movie before,
I’d never done anything. He’d
say stand on your mark and I’d go wander across room, I had no
clue what was going on. But
I don’t know, I thought it was hilarious of course.

I
did too.

It
was a very tough film to shoot.
I’m very happy for it now because it was boot camp.
I learned so much on that, so fast it kind of instilled the
work ethic of not holding anything up and not wasting film.
But I think it’s also just [an] empathy kind of the thing
with people that don’t come out of their trailers… I’m like,
what about that guy that has to drive home for two hours just to see
his kid for like a half an hour before he goes to bed… Come on.
And I think it all kind of goes in line with that.
But working obviously with Robert [Rodriguez] and Quintin
[Tarantino] was, I think for any actor was pretty much a dream and
the fact that I got to work with both of them.

[Playing]
Cherry [Darling] was amazing and I think, probably til I die; she
will always be one of my favorite characters I’ve ever played.
And I feel quite protective towards her, so hopefully nobody
will put her down. And
if they do, she can just shoot them in the face with her machine
gun. [Laughing]
I think the whole thing in expecting to see this movie, I
think you should expect to laugh and dry-heave at the same time and
just go in knowing… just sit in that roller coaster seat, you
know, buckle up and go along for the ride.
And have fun… gosh. And
I hope to see people with a machine gun leg for Halloween outfits
next year.