Dying of Politeness: A Memoir

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Following a long period of intermittent work, Davis often ventured into television acting, and through her organization, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, saw her career expand during the 2010s. In 2012, she starred as a psychiatrist in the miniseries Coma, based on the 1977 novel Coma by Robin Cook and the subsequent 1978 film. She played a powerful female movie executive in the critically acclaimed comedy In a World... (2013), the directorial debut of Lake Bell. [40] Bell found her only dialogue to be her favorite in the film and called it her "soapbox moment". [40]

Yes, actually. Those are all Disney movies, by the way, and they’re doing a great job. We did a study in 2019 of family-rated films and found that, unlike when we started, in 2004, lead characters were fifty-fifty male and female. And then the next year, 2020, we looked at kids’ TV shows, and we’ve also reached parity in the lead characters on those. The latest is that we’ve reached parity in all the characters. So things actually really changed. When I started out, I’d hear that after forty you stop getting roles. But I was getting these giant roles, and I thought, Well, obviously that’s not going to happen to me. And so it was stunning to realize that it did. It was absolutely stunning and heartbreaking. It felt like forced retirement. I’d usually taken a year in between movies, more or less. But then two years, and then three years, was, like, unbelievable. I got “Stuart Little” and then “Stuart Little 2,” but other than that the work just dried up. It was incredibly painful. You write in your book, about the appeal of archery, “There’s nothing subjective about it—unlike my day job, which is utterly subjective.” How did it feel to be that good at something like that?Exactly. If I thought I wasn’t being paid attention to, I could be very extroverted, like on my paper route. There was a section of it where there weren’t houses on either side, and when I hit that patch I would start to sing at the top of my lungs. And then the people in the next section would come out of their houses and peek down the hill and say, “What is taking so long? My papers should be here by now!”—and see me down there just bellowing songs. It was very embarrassing when I knew they knew. I figured out that the creators of the kids’ entertainment didn’t realise there was a gender disparity, they all said, ‘Oh, no, no, that’s not true any more’. And they would name a movie with one female character as proof that there was gender equality. So I decided, if I get the data, I can go to them directly... I could just go privately and politely to them and share the data. I bet on the fact that the data would make them want to do better. And, it absolutely worked.” Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis taking a Polaroid of themselves in a scene from the film Thelma & Louise, 1991. Photograph: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Getty Images Burch, Ariel Z (March 15, 2008). "Geena Davis: In a league of her own". Archived from the original on January 17, 2013 . Retrieved June 12, 2012. You were often referred to in the industry as being “not conventionally pretty enough” or “too tall.” How did getting your looks dissected over time affect you?

An animatronic. I could hear everything they said, and I heard one of them say, “It’s not a mannequin. It has hair on its arms.” So that was the last time I had hair on my arms. And then I tied little strings around my wrist to make it look like my hands were attached. But then I heard somebody say, “It’s not real. It would have to be plugged in if it was real.” So I got a very small, discreet cord and trailed it down and away from the window. They’d be watching, and somebody would say, “It’s plugged in! It is a mannequin!” Rawson, Christopher (July 9, 1991). " 'Birdie gets a 'Burgher". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . Retrieved January 12, 2022.They might be surprised to hear [the stories about Bill Murray] if they haven’t heard stories about him previously, because he comes off as an affable, fun-loving guy, and many times he was or could be. But once I had that experience, on day one of the movie, then everything about him after that was completely colored by knowing what lurks within. I saw it very, very often when he would deal with other people that way. I don’t know if I said this in the book, but I was watching him tear apart somebody one day on set. He finished, and the other person went away, and he turned around sort of self-satisfied and I said, “Man, I can’t wait for you to do that to me again, because now I know how I’ll react.” And he said, “Oh, I don’t have to. You behaved after that.” So he thought he has to go off on somebody to make sure they “behave.” Whatever his idea of “behaving” is—not challenging him, I guess. [ Vanity Fair has reached out to Murray’s lawyer for comment.] Nominations announced for the 12th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards". SAG-AFTRA. Archived from the original on September 22, 2015 . Retrieved October 26, 2021.