Failure Throwback: Geena Davis

27:13I like to talk to you. It's so cool. Oh, I love it. It just sounds so good. I know. The way people said my name in Sweden was Jina. Jina. So I liked being Jina. And you couldn't just say Jina? That wouldn't sound the same? No, because they have that lilt when they speak. Wow, so cool.

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28:44Talking of acting, that brings us on to your second failure, which is not being a top model. Yes. So you, Gina Davis, had a very clear plan of how you were going to become an actor. What was it? Yes. So this came to me when I was in college studying acting. And all my friends wanted to be in play, you know, theatre. We were theatre majors. And I knew that I wanted to be in films instead. and nobody told me, you know, maybe you should move to LA once you graduate. You know, I just had no clue what I was supposed to do to get jobs in movies. So at the time, Christy Brinkley and Lauren Hutton also were getting roles in movies.

29:27And I thought, okay, so that means if I become a famous model, they'll just give me parts in movies. So I'll just, they'll just throw parts my way. So I'll just become a famous model because it's like so much easier to become a supermodel than an actor, I guess. So that was my goal. Yes, that I couldn't just be a model. I needed to be a very famous model in order for people to notice me and want to put me in movies. So by this stage in your life, are you feeling friends with your physical appearance? Have you now realize that you are beautiful? Well, no, not really. But obviously, I still thought that I could potentially be a famous model, because I don't know that I could trick people into thinking I was beautiful or something.

30:19I mean, I knew I was tall enough. But then even when I started modeling, and I did a lot of bathing suits and underwear shoots and things like that. and I thought, I didn't make me think, wow, people are paying me a lot of money because they like how my body looks. I thought, okay, so I know how to trick people into thinking I have a good body because I know how to stand or hide my flaws or something. So it was weird. It was strange, you know, that I had this idea that I could be a very successful model while still thinking that I wasn't attractive. But you also seem like an extremely hard worker.

30:57Yes. Yeah. And so maybe it's a combination of, I know I can work really hard at this. Right. And I'm really good at tricking people because actually I'm a huge fraud. I'm a massive imposter. Right. But no one else has realized yet. So I must be doing a good job at tricking. Exactly. Exactly. Has that sense of imposter syndrome ever left you? It impacted so much of my life. But I think it has left me, although I have to say, doing press for the book and people say lovely things about it. It's always like, oh, gosh. Yeah. It's uncomfortable. a little bit like really you're you know so do you feel uncomfortable with compliments or it's just you don't believe them no I mean it's just that I maybe think they're going too far or or something you know it's uncomfortable to admit that I am actually good at things although I think I am I think I know I know that I am but it's uh but you admit it in such a beautiful way that it doesn't in any way sound arrogant I mean you're so far the opposite end of the spectrum from Aragon that you could do with just 5 % of like male entitlement.

31:59And you would still be utterly delightful. And so don't worry about it. It sounds really good to me when you say, I think I am actually pretty good at writing. Also, did you illustrate this book? Are they your illustrations? Yes, they are. So you're basically a gifted cartoonist as well. I actually have a children's book that'll be coming out next year. That you've illustrated? That I will have drawn the pictures to you. That's amazing, Gina. Okay, wait, so I've got distracted. So you were modeling. Yes. And just tell us quickly the Ann Taylor story, because it's so batshit, excuse my language, but it's also so brilliant.

32:36Right, right. Well, when I first moved to New York, the first day I went out and got a job as a sales girl at Ann Taylor, but I needed something to support myself. And I loved it. I thought Ann Taylor was like really the height of fashion or something. So I would very carefully dress, you know, makeup and hair and wear Ann Taylor clothes. And one day I noticed that the front window, there were mannequins sitting at a sort of a cafe table and they had plastic food in front of them as if they were having lunch. And there was an empty chair in the middle. And I was peeking in the window and I said to one of my girlfriends, dare me to go in the window.

33:15And she's like, yeah, yeah, go. So I went and sat in the chair of the window and I'm like, what am I going to do now? And there were a couple people who happened to be looking in the window and saw me get in there and they start watching me. And so I decided I was going to freeze like a mannequin and pretend to be a mannequin. And so I did. And then they're just waiting. They're like, what's this? What are you going to do? And then other people started coming up and saying, I could hear through the window saying, what are you guys looking at? Because I guess I really looked like a mannequin. They said, well, just wait.

33:44Just wait. And then they waited. And more and more people said, what are you guys looking at? It's just a window with mannequins. And then finally, when I moved, I was like, wow. And then I froze again. And anyway, the manager came over and saw what I was doing. And she was like, Gina, get out of the window. And then she saw the big crowd and she said, well, actually stay in the window. And then they started hiring me to be a mannequin in the window. And you took it to these extraordinary lengths where you had ties around your wrist to make it look like you were plastic. Like they were attached.

34:17Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I got a wig that looked just like the wigs that the mannequins had on it, Ann Taylor. And I could hear everything people said, like I said. And I heard somebody say, it's not a mechanical mannequin. It has hair on its arms. And so, okay. And then I didn't have hair on my arms anymore. And then somebody said, it can't be a machine because it's not plugged in. And so then the next day I had a little tiny wire very subtly drifting off. And then somebody would say, it's plugged in. It is a robot mannequin. And so, yeah. Is there something that you love about being in a situation where you're in on the secret and you're in a position where you can observe people?

35:00Yes. It was fascinating. It was so fun. I could wrangle the crowd. You know, I could figure out when I should move. You know, I wait until it seems like people are going to start drifting away. And then I do some move and then they're captivated again. It was great. It was really great. Sometimes they would try to throw me off. They'd try to say things or do things that would distract me. Do you think you're shy? I have been terribly shy, and I could still become shy for sure, but not as much anymore. I mean, I was cripplingly shy in the beginning. When I first started dating, it was sort of a nightmare because I didn't want to voice any opinions.

35:46Like they say, where should we have dinner or whatever? Oh, I don't know, wherever you want. What do you want to eat? Oh, you know, whatever, I don't care. It kind of drove guys crazy sometimes. Like, can you ever just say what you want? No. Ultimately, you're trying to please them by doing that. I've done that in the past as well. Right, right. Like, I can't even pick what salad I want because he might not like the kind of lettuce. You know, it's like so insane to try to please someone in that way. I am going to come back to this failure in just a second. But because we're talking about dating, you've been married four times.

36:23I'm a huge believer that a relationship is not a failure because it ends. Right. And all failure is data acquisition. And I just wonder what those relationships have taught you, if you could sum it up. Right. Well, I don't know. Such a hard question. Right. But I totally agree with you. And I have excellent relationships with some of my exes. because parts of it were very successful. And so you can retain those parts ultimately somehow for whatever reason. It didn't work out in the long run, but I have very, very fond memories of a lot of my relationships. So your failure as a top model led to you being an actor.

37:00Tell us how that happened. Yes. So I did work here and there as an actor. When they were casting Tootsie, the casting director called model agencies and said, if you have any models that can also act, let me know. And they were like, we have one. She studied acting and everything. And so I got to audition for it. And I was told to wear a bathing suit under my clothes because if I read well, they would want to see what my body looks like. The role entailed the character being in her underwear a couple of times with, you know, Dustin Hoffman's pretending to be a woman and he comes in a room with a half-naked woman and he has to not react, you know what I mean?

37:40Yeah, because I'm sure that happened a lot in auditions around that time that you had to show. But actually with Tootsie, it was a slightly different element. It wasn't just that you were being sexually harassed. No, no, no. It had an actual legitimate purpose. So anyway, so I go to the audition and it's just a casting assistant with a video recorder. She doesn't say, can I see you in a bathing suit? And so I think, well, obviously the first audition I ever have, I'm not going to get cast in a movie with Dustin Hoffman and Sidney Pollack, the director. So I forgot all about it. And I went for the first time to Paris to do the runway collections.

38:16I hadn't really ever done runway stuff before. And I was very excited. And while I was gone, Sidney Pollack looked at the audition tapes and said, I really like this girl. Where's her bathing suit shot? And she said, oh, well, we forgot to ask her. Well, get her back. Oh, no, it turns out she can't. She's in France. Well, do they have any photos of her in a bathing suit? and thankfully I had been in a Victoria's Secret catalogue. So they just sent that over. And I'm not saying they went, well, let's get her, but it helped me get the part. And Tootsie, which, I mean, it sounds like I'm making this up, is another one of my favourite films of all time.

38:56I re-watched it recently. Yes, it really holds up, doesn't it? It really holds up and it's always such a relief when you go back to favourite films from like the 80s and 90s and they hold up. Right, right. Oh, it's just, I think that what I love about it, obviously the performances are exceptional. I love Sidney Pollack, the director's cameo, like his part in it. Yeah. But it's so warm hearted as a movie. And it sounds as though it was like that on set as well. It really was. It really was. It was incredible. I didn't know what it would be like to be on set. And I was a little worried about it before I got there.

39:32I thought there might be some special movie acting that I hadn't learned as a theater major and that they would expect me to know how to movie act. So I was a little trepidatious in the beginning, but I got there and we shot my first scene. And both Dustin and Sidney Pollack were incredibly respectful and welcoming, treated me like instantly like a peer. It was nothing like, well, she's just a model we got. But it was very, very supportive and welcoming. So the whole thing was like that. It was the most incredible introduction to a career in Hollywood that you could ever ask. And Dustin Hoffman gave you very good advice for dealing with amorous co-stars, didn't he?

40:15He did. He gave me lots of good advice. All day long he was thinking of things. He was like he wanted to prepare me for this career that he seemed sure that I would have. So one of the pieces of advice was never sleep with your co-stars because, you know, it'll complicate things. It's just not good. So don't do it. But here's what you say, which was, yay, okay, tell me what I say. And it was, I would love to. You're very attractive. But I don't want to ruin the sexual tension between us. So good. And so I squirreled that away. All right. If I ever need that, I'm going to remember. and that I did need it only a few months later.

40:57With Jack Nicholson. With Jack Nicholson, yes. My agent had taken me and a couple other models who wanted to be actors to L.A. to meet casting directors, whatever. And he happened to know Jack Nicholson. So for this entire week, we had dinner with Jack Nicholson every night, just like the models, the agent, and Jack Nicholson. And about midweek, I came home from appointments and there was a message, Gina, please call Jack Nicholson. And I'm like, oh, my God. I showed it to my roommate and stuff. And I'm like, oh, Jack Nicholson wants me to call him. So I call and say, hello, Jack. This is Gina, the model.

41:32You called me. And he says, yeah, hey, Gina, when's it going to happen? And I'm like, why didn't I realize what this was going to be about? You know, it's not going to be where you star with me in a movie. It's going to be let's get together. But I said, I thought, I know exactly what to say for once in my life. I said, well, Mr. Nicholson, Jack, I would love to. It's very tempting, but I have a feeling we're going to work together in the future. And I would hate to have ruined the sexual tension between us. Oh, my. I mean, how elegant. And he said. And he said, oh, man, where did you get that?

42:13Oh, he immediately assumed somebody had told me, you know, taught me to say that. But it worked. I mean, thank you, Dustin Hoffman, for saving lovely, innocent Gina. Exactly. Little did he know that I would need it so soon. There's also a great bit, which isn't directly related, but about Warren Beatty. Yes. Tell us just quickly about that. Oh, God. So I was at a party that Warren Beatty was at. And in fact, I had just split with Jeff Goldblum, my second husband. Who I never wanted you to split with because the two of you just looked like you fit together. We were such a great couple, I have to say.

42:52We really were. I miss it. I miss it a lot. It had been public, so he knew about that. He said, hey, I was sorry to hear that you and Jeff split. You guys were such a great couple. In fact, I don't know if you remember, I was on an elevator once with you two. I said, oh, no, I don't remember. And he says, yeah, I was looking at you guys. I thought, they are such a great couple that I'm not even going to fuck her. As if it's his prerogative. Yeah, as if obviously he would have done otherwise. Well, and that he can't. He can't, you know. He could just fuck anybody he wants. But you know what? I'm going to be so gracious that I'll leave this alone.

43:29It's just so funny that he then told you that as well. Yes. This is a compliment, though. It was a total compliment. I just loved you guys. I decided I wouldn't destroy it, you know. Oh, Gina, we're laughing about this, but I suppose there is a sort of underlying sense that it was a tough time for a woman navigating the movie industry right through the 80s, 90s, early 2000s. How did you feel when the Me Too movement started in 2017? It was extraordinary. I mean, obviously it came about for horrific reasons, but at least things became known. women started being believed. I remember the Cosby thing happened first.

44:10And I remember that it had gotten up to 50 women saying that he had assaulted them. And still people were saying, well, you know, we're not sure we can believe it. It's like, how many of us have, you know, does it take to be believed? And so, you know, it really became Me Too with the Harvey Weinstein of it all. But I was thrilled. I was absolutely thrilled that it came out and that we could talk about it and finally be believed and make change. When other women would come forward and now it was okay to bring it up. And so other people got busted, were discovered to be serial abusers. And it really changed things in Hollywood.

44:55I mean, not as much as we could wish. I'm sure things still go on in secret and there's still women that might not want to come forward and say what happened to them. But it's very, very different. And part of it is that it is okay now if you feel strong enough to say what happened to you. Because I think when I was in the early years and my peers, I think we all felt like you can't complain about anything. They'll just get somebody else. Your job is to be no trouble, pleasant, nice to work with, and never, never, never complain about anything. Whether it was salary or sexual assault, you couldn't talk about it.

45:35But Me Too changed that, that it suddenly was okay. Because then you saw women coming out and saying, me too, me too, this happened to me too. And then it became okay to talk about your salary also, which people had never felt comfortable. Women had never felt comfortable talking about, but if you found out your co-star was making 10 times what you were making, it suddenly became okay to say that in an interview and say, I deserve equal money. And I mean, this was just extraordinary. it's such an interesting point you make about how you felt as I did that it was the price of admission that you were lucky just even to be allowed onto the playing field and anything that you had to put up with was just something you had to deal with because how lucky were we that we were allowed to have this job when our grandmothers wouldn't have had it right but me too and I know I don't work in the same industry as you but me too for me helped me recategorize incidents in my past.

46:35And I wonder if it did that for you. Because suddenly I was like, oh, that was harassment. Absolutely. It did. It definitely did. It helped me to recategorize things for sure. Were there specific incidents? Well, I had an audition for a movie quite early on. It was very early in my career. And the director acted incredibly inappropriately in this audition because he asked me to act out the scene, which was kind of a sexy scene with him. And it involved sitting on a man's lap. And at first I thought he had to be kidding, you know, that really? No, no, I mean, that isn't how auditions go. You read with somebody else.

47:15And he said, no, no, but sit here. Do it with me. And I was like, I don't want to do this, but I did, you know, and hating every second of it. But after Me Too, I realized that helped me really recategorize that as assault, really. And not being your fault. Yeah. You went along the way. And not being my fault. Yeah.

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48:25restaurants.

48:29you got that part in tipsy yeah your movie career is stellar and then we come to your third failure and i'm so glad that you have chosen this one which is your add diagnosis right right because it came when you were 41 is that right yes exactly so i had felt forever that there was something wrong with me that was a huge secret and had to be hidden. And I thought I had a sort of personality flaw or character flaw because from when I was a kid, I noticed that I couldn't finish a lot of things or I couldn't start things. I got straight A's up until junior high school because there was no homework per se that would have tripped me up.

49:18But once we started having assignments where you had to take several nights to write a paper or you had to study for several days for a test or something, I was like lost. And I didn't want anybody to know this about me, that I wasn't able to do that. It was torture. It was just torture because I also felt like I must get all A's, which I've been doing. And so it was really hard to get through high school. I mean, I managed to mostly still get A's, but it was just so torturous. And, you know, and there were other things I just couldn't complete or I couldn't start. And I carried forward into my adult life.

49:58What about learning lines? I managed to pick a career and fortunately be able to get work in a career that absolutely puts a gun to your head. because on that day when they're going to shoot this thing and hundreds of people are there and they're spending, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars a day, you have to perform. You know, this is your one chance to get it right. And so I would learn the lines, but often the night before. But I would learn the lines and I would be absolutely ready when the time came. But if I'd had a more measured job where you're just kind of doing, you know, your work every day and need to be steady, have had a terrible time.

50:38And forgive my ignorance, does ADD or ADHD have an impact on your personal relationships? Is there also an element of, I can't sustain this? It did. It really did. Not, I can't sustain this relationship, but as far as their image of me, their approval of me, like eventually they would realize that she didn't do the thing I asked her to or she didn't, you know, and look at our house is a mess and things like that. And I remember one relationship, the man said he wanted to break up because I never bought chairs for the dining room table. What? But to him, he saw the way I was as a serious character flaw that I just can't seem to finish things or focus on whatever it was he wanted me to focus on.

51:25Wow. I'm sorry that happened. So how did you get your diagnosis? I started with a therapist at 41. And within maybe by the second time I saw her, she said, has anybody ever told you that you have ADD? And I said, oh, no, no, no, I can't because I'm so not hyperactive. And back then, we still did call it ADD instead of ADHD. I said, I'm profoundly not hyperactive. She said, but you can have it without being hyperactive. I'm like, really? So she said, well, just go see this person and get tested. And I turned out that the results showed that I had a very serious case of ADD. And it was magic. It was so unbelievable to find that out, that there was a reason, you know, that for 41 years, I've been going through this sort of self-torture about not being able to do things that I wanted, you know, that I desperately wanted to do, but I just couldn't.

52:27I had an earlier therapist who, I would talk about this all the time, you know, I want to write a book. I want to learn how to play the violin. I want to, you know, all these things, but I can't seem to do it. And she would say, well, maybe you're just that kind of person who, you know, just doesn't do things. I mean, she said, Winston Churchill did a lot of work in bed and maybe you were kind of that kind. I was also a functioning alcoholic. Maybe you don't need to do all those things you keep saying you want to do. And I was like, I do. I really want to do them. Wow. Yeah. So it made sense of a lot of things for me.

53:03And then did it enable you to use it as a power rather than a weakness? Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Yes. It really changed everything. It was such a relief to know that, wait a minute, I could stop blaming myself and abusing myself for having this giant flaw that I really don't want anybody to know about. And the other side of ADD is that you can also have attention surplus disorder. My therapist described it as being like a lion and they lay around 90 % of the day and then, what's that? And then they're 100 % focused. So that's kind of what it's like. So the archery, this stems from the same sort of time in your life.

53:49Exactly the same time. So do you think your diagnosis of ADD sort of fed into the fact that you were absolutely able to focus on becoming an Olympic level archer? Well, yes, yes. I started feeling completely differently about myself. And I'd had this idea that I wanted to take up a sport in real life and not just a movie version of a sport and picked archery. Partly I also started learning coping skills. I really wanted to become as good as I possibly could get at archery, which means lots of practice. But I knew it was going to be hard to get to the practice field every day. So sometimes I would have him meet me.

54:27I would make an appointment at 10 o 'clock. Please meet me there. And I would have to not let him keep waiting. But once I started and he got me started, he could leave and I'd spend five hours there. you know yeah and one of the things that you wrote you loved about archery is that there's nothing subjective about it tell us about that yes it was amazing to realize what it was about it that really meant so much to me which was you can measure it it's points it doesn't matter what you wear it doesn't matter people's opinion it's nothing like you know ice skating or something where there's judges you hit the target or you don't and you add up the points and you know exactly how you did.

55:07And it was so different from my day job, which is utterly subjective. So I love that about it. I've just got a few more questions for you, I promise. And then I'll let you go. If anyone is listening to this, and they have just had a diagnosis of ADHD or ADD, and they're feeling really low about it, what would you say to them? You know, it's actually kind of fabulous to have ADHD. People tend to be incredibly creative. And If you can develop coping skills, there's all kinds of articles about how to develop coping skills to counteract the effect of not being able to start things or finish things.

55:45It actually can be a real advantage. You see the world through very colourful eyes. And so it can be great. It's kind of fabulous. I love that. So I wanted to ask you before we draw to a close about age, but specifically the fact that the Geena Davis story, as told in multiple interviews, is you had this extraordinary career and then you hit 40 and the roles seemed to dry up and you were interested in why that was happening and you launched the Gina Davis Institute as a result of that and then you started getting roles again and now you sit before us the fabulous women that you are but my reading of it is that I feel you really discovered yourself in your 40s you had this diagnosis you became an Olympic level archer right you were doing all of that And actually, it sounds such an empowering decade in many ways.

56:36And one of the things I know that happened in your 40s is that you became a mother. Yes. My personal story is that I'm not a mother yet, and I'm in my 40s. Yes. And it's been a long old journey, but I'm determined to get there. Yeah. And I suppose what I'm asking from you is what it's like being a parent in your 40s and whether that came with lots of benefits because you were slightly older. Yes, it did. And in fact, I always knew I wanted kids at some point. I waited very long, but I knew that the older I was, the better it might be because I felt like I had low self-esteem and I didn't want my kids to have low self-esteem.

57:12So I felt like the older I got, the more confident I would get, the more evolved I would get, and then I would be better positioned to be a great role model to them. So that was my thinking, that it's going to be an advantage. I want to say the impression of me that you were talking about. I did not start the Institute because I had a lack of jobs at all. It was specifically about the lack of female characters in kids' entertainment. When I started showing preschool shows that I thought were educational or whatever to my daughter, I immediately noticed that there were far more male characters than female characters in the 21st century.

57:55and what are we doing? We're showing kids that girls are profoundly less important than boys and we're showing boys that boys are more important. So we have to change this immediately. And you have one daughter and two twin sons. Yes. So if they were sitting here today, how do you think they would describe you as a mother? Well, I don't know. I know they love me. Yeah, we have a great relationship. But I made a point of being their media literacy coach. So I would watch everything with them. And I was able to say, why do you think there's no girls in that scene? Do you think girls could do what those boys are doing?

58:36And so they're very savvy now as other adults. Well, I'm sure they're incredibly grateful to you. but we're incredibly grateful to you for shaping the culture as an actor, as a campaigner, as the phenomenal woman that you are. I cannot thank you enough for giving me your time and your warmth today. Gina Davis, thank you so much for coming on How to Fail. Thank you. It was so much fun. Thank you.