Geena Davis
Geena Davis
Virginia Elizabeth "Geena" Davis is an American actress, film producer, writer, former fashion model, and former archer. She is known for her roles in The Fly, Beetlejuice, Thelma & Louise, A League of Their Own, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Stuart Littleand The Accidental Tourist, for which she won the 1988 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress...
ProfessionMovie Actress
Date of Birth21 January 1956
CityWareham, MA
aunt different lucky
I was really lucky that I had an aunt who was very inspiring to me. She was different than anybody in my family on either side.
mom father parent
My parents are both from Vermont, very old-fashioned New England. We heated our house with wood my father chopped. My mom grew all of our food. We were very underexposed to everything.
summer cat college
I had this aunt who had a career and traveled. She'd say things like, "When you go to college, I think we should go scuba diving in the summer. The scuba diving in Portugal is fabulous." And I'd be like, "Portugal! Holy cats!".
wine aunt done
[My aunt] took me to my first play, too, which was dinner theater. I don't know if they have that in England, but you eat a dinner while you watch a play. And she ordered a glass of wine. I was like, "Oh my God. This is, like, the most sophisticated thing I have ever done."
horror film horror-film
My knowledge of horror films is pathetic because I can't really watch them.
aunt understanding world
I was 16 or something. [My aunt] broadened my understanding of what women could be like and do and that there's a big world out there. So she had a huge impact on me.
thinking gender ceo
I realized that in all the sectors of society where there's a huge gender disparity, the one place that can be fixed overnight is onscreen. You think about getting half of Congress, or the presidency ... It's going to take a while no matter how hard we work on it. But half of the board members and half of the CEOs can be women in the next movie somebody makes; it can be absolutely half.
hero sick my-hero
I drive [Susan Sarandon] nuts. I'm always talking about her being my hero. I'm sure she's probably sick of it.
being-yourself thinking people
Even though I was 34 or 35 or something. I was like, "People can do that? Women can actually just say what they think?" It was an extraordinary experience to do that movie [Thelma & Louise] with [Susan Sarandon] because every day was a lesson in how to just be yourself.
forever frustrating
That's the really frustrating thing, but also the fixable thing. My theory why no one notices is that that's the [women's roles] ratio thing they grew up with. It's just been that way forever, so they don't see it.
cutting thinking swear
I meet Susan [Saradon], and she was amazing. We sit down to go through the script [Thelma & Louise]. I swear, I think it was page one - she says, "So my first line, I don't think we need that line. Or we could put it on page two. Cut this ..." And I was just like ... My jaw was to the ground.
daughter mother believe
When my friends and I would act out movies as kids, we'd play the guys' roles, since they had the most interesting things to do. Decades later, I can hardly believe my sons and daughter are seeing many of the same limited choices in current films.
winning giving trying
When I got pregnant, I told [Susan Sarandon ]. She said, "All right. I'm gonna tell you the thing to do when you're giving birth: Push like you're trying to win a prize, like you want to be the best patient he's ever had. He's going to give you a prize for winning that." So I did. [The doctor] said, "You are probably the best pusher I've had as a patient."
chocolate careful brushing
Somebody warned me early on to be very careful about brushing up against the chocolate....