Gina Gershon Was Warned Against Playing ‘Lesbian Role’
“If you can’t represent me, I’ll go somewhere else.”
Showgirls and Pretty in Pink actor Gina Gershon revealed she was cautioned against starring in The 1996 queer classic Bound by her agents, but chose to take the role anyway: “If you can’t represent me, I’ll go somewhere else.”
In a recent interview on the It Happened In Hollywood podcast, hosted by Hollywood Reporter senior writer Seth Abramovitch, Gershon says her agents told her that taking on a “lesbian role” would be the end of her career.
“It was a great script and I could tell they were incredible directors, but my agents were like, ‘We will not let you do this movie. You are ruining your career,’” Gershon said. “‘We will not be able to let you represent. You will never work again.’”
Gershon says she saw the potential in the script written by the Wachowskis and wanted to take on the role regardless.
“I just said, ‘Oh, well, I guess if you can’t represent me, I’ll go somewhere else.’ You know? No hard feelings,” she continued. “I said, first of all, it’s so shortsighted to say, ‘Oh, this is a lesbian movie.’ I mean, they happen to be lesbians. They happen to be into women, but it’s really a movie about trust.”
Co-star Jennifer Tilly, who also starred in the Chucky franchise, joined Gershon on the podcast, sharing that she also felt apprehensive about accepting the role.
“People don’t understand what it was like 20, 25 years ago. There were hardly ever any lesbian sub-plots and if there were, they were very salacious,” said Tilly. “Gina knew right away she wanted to do it. I was trepidatious.”
The erotic thriller features Gershon as Corky, who has a love affair with Violet (Tilly). The two hatch a plan for Violet to escape from her violent gangster boyfriend Ceasar and steal two million dollars from the mob on the way out.
Bound feature film directorial debut of Lana and Lily Wachowski before the duo rose to fame with The Matrix. Gershon called the then-first time directors “incredibly gifted and secret geniuses.”
Following the filming, the actors were told “we cannot see two women really in love” and many romantic scenes were cut from the final film. When Tilly and Gershon asked the Wachowskis about the decision, the directors said it was “homophobia plain and simple.”
“That was the problem in Hollywood, god forbid you have two women who are really into each other, really having sex, really in love,” said Gershon. “Let’s just show a bit of a tit and something else and it will be more acceptable.”
The film went on to win multiple awards, including the 1997 GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding (wide-release) Film and Grand Jury Award—Honorable Mention at the 1996 L.A. Outfest. Bound is now considered a cult-classic and is often cited as a groundbreaking mainstream portrayal of a lesbian relationship.
