Geena Davis is spilling all the tea on one of the most defining films of his prolific career – Thelma and Luisa.
Sitting down for her ET retrospective of the Bentonville Film Festival, the 68-year-old actress — co-founder and honoree of the festival, which celebrated its tenth anniversary this year — talked about falling in love with Louise (Susan Sarandon) to her Thelma during the filming of the 1991 film and why she had the deciding vote on who should play the role of J.D. – a work she helped launch Brad Pittcareer.
Davis has previously shared that Pitt, throughout the casting process, was in stiff competition, as she also read with Marcos Ruffalo, George Clooney It is Melrose Place star Grant program before inadvertently choosing the money ball actor, 60, for the role.
“Listen, I don’t want to take any credit, Brad won the role – obviously,” Davis told ET. “There were three other guys I was reading with. They wanted to see these final four candidates and who I could have chemistry with. So one by one they showed up — very good looking, very talented — and then the last one was Brad Pitt.”
According to Davis, Pitt was so charming while reading for the role of bad boy JD – a convicted criminal who absconds with all of Thelma and Louise’s money and sends them on a crime spree – that she could barely focus on her own. you speak. .
“I was so distracted by how charismatic he is, he just oozes charisma. But I would say my line and he would say his,” she said while pretending to be distracted by Pitt’s appearance and acting ability, only to resume her line. get up and get lost again.
“(I was) so blown away… and then he got the part,” she says. In 2022, she told talk show host Graham Norton that when producers asked her opinion, she told them to pick the “blonde” and that the rest was history. Hilariously, Davis told ET that she apologized to Pitt for “ruining” her audition and that he was more than merciful, telling her, “‘It’s okay.'”
Pitt certainly wasn’t the only actor on set who Davis swooned over. In 1991, she spoke to ET and explained the instant connection she had with Sarandon, 77, and how she knew even then that they would be friends for life.
“I really thought about this movie and thought, ‘Well, what if I really don’t like Susan, how can I make this work?’ The second I laid eyes on her, she walked into the room and I fell in love with her, it was so funny,” she said at the time. “This has rarely happened to me before.”
Reacting to the archival clip, Davis was surprised and called Sarandon one of his best friends and closest allies, saying they should meet on the set of that little movie that took off and became a classic.
“We are very close, she has always been and will always be my ride or die,” Davis says of Sarandon, who the A league of its own star said he will always remember meeting.
“It’s one of the most memorable moments of my life, the day I met Susan,” says Davis. “It was Ridley (Scott), Susan and I were getting together, just us, and we were going to go through the script page by page and (see) if any of us had any thoughts or ideas or any small changes that maybe we could make. Maybe you want to do it.”
Sarandon — who Davis says is bold and powerful in a way “revolutionary” for her — came to the script ready to make edits, which opened Davis’ eyes to how to speak up for herself and address issues with her work.
“I swear, we open the script and on page one, Susan says, ‘My first line here, I think we should just cut it.’ And I thought, ‘Can people do this? Is it right to say that?’” Davis jokes. “Everyone loved her. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, we like Gehenna more because she’s a complete coward.’ There was nothing confrontational about her, she just said what she thought.”
The film stars Davis and Sarandon as the titular characters who are longtime best friends and desperately need to escape their dull Arkansas lives and unsatisfying relationships. But a weekend getaway ends with the two fleeing to Mexico in a turquoise Thunderbird after killing a man, authorities in pursuit in a full-steam crime spree.
Thelma and Luisa – directed by Foreigner It is Blade runner director Ridley Scott – became a huge hit for actresses and creative minds, including writer Callie Khouri, who won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in 1992. Davis and Sarandon were also nominated for Oscars in the Best Leading Actress category. while Scott, 86, received a Best Director nomination.
For Davis, who already won the Oscar for Best Actress in The accidental tourist, Thelma and Luisa It will forever be a film that she ranks as one of the most important of her career, especially looking back some 33 years later.
“The whole experience was a lesson for me in how to operate in the world in a completely different way than I did,” Davis shared.
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