Still in a League of Her Own

Bryan Bedder / Getty Images Now appearing in her first independent film, Geena Davis speaks with The Daily Beast's Rachel Syme about young Brad Pitt, growing older on film, and a Thelma & Louise sequel.

“This is my first film festival,” Geena Davis whispers, conspiratorial and winking, as she sits down on the cold plastic chair graciously provided by the Tribeca Film Festival organizers for our chat. We are in a room that feels like an afterthought—a gray-carpeted closet of space with chipped white walls, upstairs in a Union Square office building that has been converted into a de facto festival headquarters. I’ve been in rooms like this before—to make copies or coffee—but when Davis enters the room, it seems there has been some mistake. Six feet tall and barely clearing the doorframe in heels, Davis’ casual glamour is overwhelming—at 53, she still looks impeccable, lean, and polished, wearing a bright orchid shift, tiny diamonds, and her hair in long brunette waves. It suddenly feels like we should be at a flashbulb junket in Cannes, or backstage at the Oscars (where Davis has been before and won), rather than in a dingy back room without windows.

"I thought, this is a new era, and I won’t have to worry. It will all be fixed by the time I’m 40! And of course, it wasn’t. All of us female actors think we can just keep going and going. But it’s not always the case."

Davis is quick to recognize the disparity—it does not escape her notice that she has gone from being one of the country’s biggest movie stars and symbols of glamour to now promoting an independent film that has yet to find a distributor— and says in her signature rasp, “I know I’ve never done any independent film before…but there aren’t that many other scripts out there with great parts for women my age. It’s a true phenomenon that the parts dwindle as you get older. You wake up one day and you’re flabbergasted to find out…so, this has happened to me.”

It would be easy for Davis to come up with a clever excuse for not having worked in two years. After the demise of her ABC show Commander in Chief in 2006, Davis could claim to have focused on motherhood (she has five-year-old twin boys and a seven-year-old daughter), or her latest project, The Geena Davis Institute, devoted to issues of gender in children’s entertainment. (She’d like to see more girls in kids’ shows.) But instead, Davis is refreshingly honest; she simply hasn’t been offered the parts.

“I had all these iconic female roles!” she sighs—Thelma & Louise, The Accidental Tourist, and A League of Their Own come to mind. “But the Screen Actors Guild runs the numbers every year, and it’s true—after 40, the parts take a nosedive.”

“When I started out,” she continues,” It was right around the time when Meryl Streep and Jessica Lange and Sally Field—all these actresses getting older—were still having big movies every year. There was a Sophie’s Choice, a Norma Rae, etc. I thought, this is a new era, and I won’t have to worry. It will all be fixed by the time I’m 40! And of course, it wasn’t. All of us female actors think we can just keep going and going. But it’s not always the case.”

Despite all of her protestations, Davis is aging into her roles, though perhaps not with the same level of glamour she anticipated. Her latest effort, Tribeca’s Accidents Happen, is one of the most exciting roles of her career. In the film, a story about a dysfunctional family prone to calamitous accidents, Davis plays the foul-mouthed matriarch. “She has a very colorful way of speaking,” Davis laughs. “I think she has 40 or 50 ways of calling someone stupid. I’ve never heard anyone talk that way, especially to her children.” In Accidents Happen, audiences will get to see Davis at her most raw and caustic; she is unapologetically unlikable, and doesn’t bank on the same talents she could when she was younger (i.e. her gravelly tone and striking appearance).