Mr. Showbiz Interview.

I thought you'd enter with bow and arrow in hand. 
That's very dangerous. I'm very deadly with that. 

When the crew showed up for Stuart Little, were they surprised that you had brought along a bow and arrow to practice with? 
Anybody who stopped by would say, "Is this for a movie?" I contacted the prop guys before we started and said, "Could you get me a target?" and contacted the studio to say, "If you have an empty stage, can I use it?" and all that stuff. But people kept dropping by and watching me do it. It was fun. 

Weren't you given a soundstage to practice on during filming? 
The one I had, I could get 50 meters diagonally. But the longest distance that women shoot at is 70 meters, so I wished it was longer. I wanted to go out on the street, but they weren't into it. You had to be in there with the targets and had to have the doors shut. Signs were all over the doors that said, "Danger! Archery in progress." 

Justin Huish, the gold-medal-winning archer that inspired you, shoots through his garage from across the street. 
That's what I thought was so hilarious. The videos of him: He stands across the street in a neighbor's yard and shoots across the street, through his garage, into his backyard. He waits until the traffic goes by. 

When most people try archery, the arrow just drops to the ground. 
It's very hard. In the first few weeks I was going, "Who can do this!" 

Why do it then? Did you learn for The Long Kiss Goodnight? 
No. I'd never done it. I wasn't really that athletic as a kid. But then I'd learned so many skills [for movies], like on The Long Kiss Goodnight or baseball skills [with A League of Their Own], and I was kind of good at stuff. I thought that maybe I had some untapped athletic ability here. At the very least I have a lot of hand-eye coordination. It was through watching Justin on television a lot. It looked so cool, and you could practice it in your yard and what not. 

So you woke up one morning and said, "I want to be an archer"? 
I had been thinking for a while that I wanted to take up a sport, and I just hadn't landed on one. Then I saw the archer. 

When did you begin this hobby? 
In the spring of '97. 

And then you were at the Olympic trials last summer! 
That's right. Yeah, it was so much fun. I just kept thinking, "I can't believe I'm at the Olympic trials." It was just, like, so weird. 

Did you think that you'd go all the way? 
I thought it was highly unlikely. I'm ranked 22nd right now in America. 

That's incredible! 
Thank you. But they only take three people, and I thought that the chances of my, at this one event, suddenly leaping to one of the top three spots was going to be pretty hard. 

Can you practice while you're working on movies? 
It works in my life, yeah. 

It's nice to see you back on the screen after being away two years. How does it feel? 
It doesn't feel like I've been away. I've been so busy with archery and other things. This was two years off, but I usually do take about a year off between projects anyway. This was not by choice, like I have a deliberate pace I'm trying to keep. I'm just very fussy, and I'm not overanxious about it. I don't really need [movies]. I'm not one of those people who needs to be working in order to feel good. I find plenty of stuff to amuse myself, so I just wait until something really appeals. 

Was this the first project where you had to deal with computer-generated creatures? 
I had a little bit of CGI experience in Beetlejuice and The Fly and was familiar with how painstaking it can be. It was actually great I had this hobby I could go off and do. I'd practice and practice and then, "Oh, no, they're not ready. Now what do I do?" 

How did this project happen? 
The producer, Doug Wick, sent me the script with a lot of drawings of Stuart and what he was going to be like, the elaborate sets they built, and a note that said, "Dear Geena, please be my mom. Love, Stuart." 

Can he write? 
Yeah, it was tiny writing. It was really little. 

Did you ever use a model for your scenes with Stuart? 
The only thing we had to go by was a little laser pointer that they would use occasionally. If he moved around, they had this little red dot that we could follow with our eyes, and the camera and everybody could follow where Stuart was. But a dot doesn't give you a lot to respond to. 

So you're saying Stuart was not there for you? 
Stuart was not there for me, no! He wouldn't even do his off-camera stuff. He didn't do anything. Nothing, nothing. 

Did you ever doubt your sanity as you're sitting there in front of a camera, investing all this intense emotion in a laser dot? 
I never feared I was losing my grip on my sanity, but I'd done so many weird things in my career. The fact that we had this incredibly intense, emotional relationship with something that didn't exist was part of it. Rob Minkoff [the director] said, "The degree that you believe in him is the degree the audience will." So that was really what I thought my job was, to approach this absolutely as realistically as possible, and be as committed as possible, and pour my feelings into this empty space. Many times we would be absorbed in some scene, and realize, "Oh my God. We're sitting here and crying over a tabletop or something." Whatever. This is just a nutty business. 

It's said you have a quirky sensibility. How do you react to that? 
I think that whoever said that, what they mean is I have an ability to behave believably in an unreal situation, that I can bring some reality to a far-fetched situation. That, in some ways, was what I was doing in Beetlejuice and more seriously in The Fly. I'm the normal person in a very bizarre situation. And if I behave like I really believe there's a guy who's turning into a fly, then the audience will take the journey with me. But I'm not, per se, quirky. I'm actually sort of grounded, although what I'm believing in is something very bizarre: That I'm a very normal, stable strong mother of a mouse. 

Is there any concern that you've reached the age where they're offering you mother roles? 
It doesn't concern me. I'm not worried about that. 

Thelma and Louise is making a lot of century lists. Do you have a favorite memory or scene from the film? 
The wonderful happenstance was we shot the final scene of the movie last. And the way it worked out was that it was the last moment we could do this scene. It was the last day of shooting, and the sun was going down, and there was only like 15 minutes or something left to get it. We [Davis and Susan Sarandon] got in the car, and we looked at each other, and it was just so weighted for so many reasons. I mean, we were getting ready to kill ourselves as our characters, and we've had this incredible, fun relationship as humans, and this was us saying goodbye to this experience and stuff. We only did like two takes, and the sun went [down.] And that was it. 

You know, Susan Sarandon was asked that same question and she mentioned the same scene. Do you guys keep in touch? 
We do, yeah. I saw her just a few weeks ago. 

They should put you two back together in something. 
It's too bad we're so dead at the end in that movie. But something else, yeah, we would like to do that. 

Did you think Brad Pitt's star would be launched by that lovemaking scene with you? 
I absolutely did, from the second he came in at his audition. I was asked to read with the fellas who were trying out for that part. 

Did they each take off their shirt for the audition? 
No. I was simply reading my side of it. There were about five guys, and Brad was one of them. I'd memorized the scene because I had done it several times, and then I realized with Brad, I couldn't remember my lines. He's very charismatic. Then after everyone was done, I stayed with Ridley [Scott, the director] and the casting director who were discussing the merits of the various young men. "This one has this and has a good look." I said, "Uh, excuse me. You wanna know what I think? The blond kid! The blond one! He was so far above anyone else." They're like, "Really?" I was like, "Please, trust me on this." He had some kind of star quality. 

Do you have a favorite memory from A League of Their Own? 
The townsfolk in Evansville, Ohio, where we were shooting, were very generously volunteering as extras in the stands. So they were dressed in period costume. It was broiling hot every day, and they would sit there for hours in the sun. It was horrible. Watching a film shoot is like watching paint dry. Tom [Hanks] took it upon himself to entertain the troops. He'd get a microphone and started leading them with cheers, spelling out Evansville with his body. And he'd put on puppet shows with hats on baseball bats and stuff. He was just so sweet. He was so worried about the people. 

What is coming up for you? 
I don't know yet. I haven't picked anything yet. 

Are you interested in doing another film like this one? 
It is different. I like to skip around and do different kinds of things. I like the use of technology in this film — and technology that was only incredibly recently invented — where they can make this mammal look realistic. I love that all this technology is used in the service of something so real and warm and sweet. It's not like a big spaceship or something. It's a little dear darling mouse. I think that's pretty interesting. 

Were you familiar with this book and with Charlotte's Web as well? 
I'd read both E.B. White books as a kid and remember very much the mouse. I think it's fun that little kids, when they see this movie, will think it's real. They're not going to think that it's a drawn thing. They'll think that it's a mouse. It's so mind blowing. 

Mr. Showbiz Interview.

Mr. Showbiz: You guys have survived the intense scrutiny that comes with being a Hollywood couple with far fewer "paparazzi scars" than many of your peers. How do you avoid unwanted attention? 
GEENA DAVIS: Well, you have to do controversial things in order to start getting recognized. But, on the other hand, they make up a lot of stuff, so who knows. 
RENNY HARLIN: We're so busy working that they don't catch us. 
GEENA: Right. 

You've been married for three or four years. Is that correct? 
GEENA: Three years. 

And in that time, you've worked very closely together to make two extremely big-budgeted action movies. Has the pressure that goes with making a Hollywood film together ever put any pressure on your personal life? 
RENNY: It's funny 'cause many times, when you read in a magazine, people say, "Oh, we worked together and boy was it tough. We'll never do that mistake again." For us, it's the opposite. We're actually dreading the fact, we were just talking about it, that soon I'll be off somewhere shooting some weird movie in some weird country. And she'll be somewhere else. And we were saying, "Well, how are we going to go and visit together?" We are so used to working together and spending time together, and we really enjoy it. And it works for us so great. Yet we definitely don't want people to think that we have grown together, joined at the hip. 

I'm interested in hearing a little bit about your next collaboration, The Politician's Wife, which details the relationship of another high-profile couple. What's the status of that film? 
RENNY: It's a collaboration in the sense that it is being produced by our company, The Forge. We are producing it together. It is something that Geena will most likely act in, but I will have nothing to do with it as a director. 

And the plot is about a politician's wife whose husband cheats on her? 
RENNY: Typical politician. 
GEENA: [Laughs] Yes, and his ethics and . . . idealism are not what she thought they were. Also, she finds out at the same time that he's not the idealistic public servant she thought he was. He's more of a scheming self-aggrandizing person. So, she gets revenge on him in a really delicious way. 

I'll have to wait for that, I suppose. So, any idea of who this self-aggrandizing politician might be? 
GEENA: No, no. There's plenty of guys who could play that. 
RENNY: Easily. 

The Politician's Wife seems to carry some echoes of the extramarital indiscretions that came back to haunt Bill Clinton during the '92 campaign . . . 
RENNY: We are huge fans of the first family. They are the greatest ever. And this movie has nothing to do with those honorable people. We love them. 

Yes, I thought so. Geena, you emceed a campaign fund-raiser for the Clintons recently . . . 
GEENA: I did. I was the host for a dinner honoring the First Lady a few weeks ago. 

Have you developed a personal relationship with Hillary and the President? 
GEENA: Well, we've met them several times and we were both active in the last campaign also. So, that's the extent of it, we've met them several times and admire them both a great deal. 

Let's look at the questions submitted by our readers and see if anything catches your interest. Why don't you answer the question from John J. Hlavaty of North Dakota, congratulating you on the success of the The Long Kiss Goodnight, and asking about your reaction to the commercial failure of Cutthroat Island. How do you react to poor reviews and poor business? 
RENNY: Well, we never make movies thinking of it as being a horse race. So, we've been lucky enough to mostly make the kinds of movies that we want to do. For both of us it had been a childhood dream to do something that deals with the kind of sense of adventure that the old pirate movies and pirate stories had. So we had a fantastic time, almost a guiltily good time, making this movie. And for us, that's the kind of life experience that we're after. And naturally, we were trying to make a movie for the twelve-year-old in every one of us, and not every movie finds its audience. It's been very successful on video, and hopefully people will discover it as time goes by. But, we were luckily so busy, already working on our next movie, that we didn't have to really worry about the fact that it was not such a huge hit. 

And unlike Cutthroat Island, The Long Kiss Goodnight went on to get good reviews and has made a decent amount of money at the domestic box office. Taking video and the foreign market into account, it looks like it'll make a profit. Do you see that as kind of a vindication, in light of the fact that some people were wondering why you were working together again? 
GEENA: We don't look at it in those terms. I mean, the only aspect of this world that we can control is our contribution to it. Once we've finished a movie and sent it out there, that's the end of our area of control. So, we just make sure that when we've signed on to do something--whether it's something together or individually--that we've always done the best that we can and worked the hardest we can and tried to do something that was good. The only way you can judge things is how you judge it yourself. You can't sit around waiting for other people to judge, you know. You have to make decisions based on how you view the world and what your goals are. As far as both of us are concerned, we're very proud of Cutthroat Island and we don't need to justify it in any other way. 

Geena, I've heard that since you've spent so much time staking out new ground for female actors in action-thriller-type movies that you're now interested in doing a "costume" period piece. Is that true? 
GEENA: That's my humorous way of saying that now that I've gone down--very, very far down--this action avenue, I'd like to do something different. As an actor, I like to challenge myself, and I like to keep doing different kinds of things. I enjoy very much and appreciate very much that I get to do different kinds of genres, so I'd like to just find something that was really different. 

Any word on what your next project will be? 
GEENA: Well, I have a whole bunch of things, that we've either developed or I'm involved with on my own, and I just can't figure out which one is actually next. It just takes a little thought trying to figure out specifically what you want to do next. So, I'm just giving myself a little breathing room. 

I suppose that's a nice problem to have. 

Let's take another question from a reader. Chris from U.C.L.A. and Mia from the University of Arizona want to know which of your last two films were the most fun and difficult, stunt-wise? 
GEENA: Well, both were incredibly fun experiences. Both doing the stunts and training and mastering the skills for them. It was sort of a once-in-a-lifetime thing, for a woman to be able to get to sword fight and swashbuckle and do all the things that I did in Cutthroat Island. So, that was pretty unique. But, I would say if anything, it was a little bit more fun doing Long Kiss Goodnight because of the variety of stunts. My character, Charly Baltimore, was skilled in so many different areas that I got to do everything from wielding a knife . . . 

In the kitchen, even . . . 
GEENA: In the kitchen, you know, from chopping vegetables to slitting somebody's throat. And using every possible kind of weapon, hand-to-hand combat, and just a real big stretch. Ice skating. I mean, there was just every possible kind of physical skill that I was called upon to do. That was really fun. 

Looking back over your career, Geena, what's the most exciting stunt you've ever done? 
RENNY: The wire? 
GEENA: The most exciting? Maybe the most fun was the big final stunt in Long Kiss Goodnight, when I fly up on the wire and blast away at helicopters with my machine guns. 

And your co-star, Craig Bierko, was terrified, if I remember right. 
GEENA: Yeah, yeah. He didn't like helicopters. He doesn't like heights, he doesn't like helicopters. He had to be hanging out the window of the helicopter the whole time, the door. 
RENNY: He had never been in a helicopter before. 

Were you at all tempted, Renny, to play a bit of a practical joke by leaving him up there longer than necessary? 
RENNY: No. My principle is that I explain to the actors what we're trying to do, and ask if they are game. We make sure that it's safe and that there is not any kind of risk involved. And then they just have to have the guts to go through with it. 
GEENA: [As an actor], if you say, "I just can't do this," that's fine with him. 

Mike from Seattle has a philosophical question about action movies for Renny. He says that it seems like the pace of action movies has picked up a lot in recent years. That there's less plot and in its place, constant mayhem. Do you feel like there's sort of a minimum intensity level now that the genre demands? 
RENNY: I think the whole language of cinema has completely changed due to advertising and MTV. If you look at 'forties movies that would have been called action movies, whether they were Westerns or film noir or whatever, the way they were shot and edited was much more slow. And the way the characters and the story were built was slower. And one dramatic fistfight or one shot in the dark or whatever was enough to make everyone's hair stand. And now, if you have a movie that is labelled action-thriller, but you have six minutes in the beginning of the movie where nothing happens, the audience is going to start kind of complaining. 

That's kinda sad, isn't it? 
RENNY: I would give a very real example from Long Kiss Goodnight. [Originally], we didn't really have action at the beginning. The first action was maybe six minutes into the movie, where there is a car crash with a deer and Geena flies through the window. But before that, it was really about telling who she is, and who Sam Jackson is, and what's going on, and establishing her home life. And we could sense something in the test screenings and by directly asking the audience members. They said, "Oh, yeah we loved it but the beginning felt slow," or "I really didn't know where it was going in the beginning." And so as an answer to this, I created an opening title sequence that gives you the idea that dangerous things will happen. We juxtaposed Christmas decorations and hand grenades, and weapons and family photos, and things like that, to tell the audience, "O.K., this is what the world of the movie is. And now try to be patient for six minutes, and you'll get into it." 

It must have been nice to make movies back in the days when you didn't have to get your work approved by test-screening audiences. 
RENNY: Yes. 

Another reader, Lisa from Ballard, Washington, says she would be willing to suspend her disbelief and forget that Thelma and Louise died at the end of the movie. She wants to see a sequel. Is there any way . . . 
GEENA: We're dead! We're dead! We're dead! We're pancakes! We're just flat-out pancakes on the bottom of the canyon. There's no way we can . . . can do it. 

So that would be a no. 
GEENA: [Laughs] We didn't have a parachute, we're dead! 

Let's take the question from Levi. He's an aspiring screenwriter living in Minnesota. What do you look for in a script and what advice can you give him? Renny, I guess maybe you should take this one. 
RENNY: I would start by saying, you have to have one of two things when you start writing a screenplay. One, is either you have to have a story that you passionately want to tell, one that you think is different enough from anything else we've seen, and special enough that it should be told and it should be told through the tools of cinema. So, it should be visual and interesting. Or, if you don't have a story, you at least have to have a character or characters that are very compelling and that can take you on a journey. That even if the story is not so solid, the characters are so interesting that you want to spend a couple of hours following what happens to them. Because we go through thousands of screenplays every year, and ninety-nine percent of them don't have a story and don't have characters. They are just sort of a rehash of elements that we have seen in other movies. The main problem is that people try to follow trends instead of creating them. So original ideas, whether they have to do with stories or characters, are the key to it. Then, let the word processor sing. 

What movies have you seen and liked recently that weren't your own? 
GEENA: Babe. 
RENNY: I have two favorite movies, over the last year or so or maybe a little more. They are Babe and Bound. Both start with a "B." 
GEENA: [Laughs] And are one syllable. 
RENNY: One is a movie about a talking pig and one is a movie about robbing lesbians. Those were my favorites. 
GEENA: Lesbian robbers, not robbing lesbians. (Laughing) 

Geena, I've heard that you're spending a lot of time in Finland these days, sort of learning the language and learning about Renny's homeland. 
GEENA: Well, we go there a couple of times a year at least. Because obviously we have a lot of friends and family there, and it's wonderful. We have a great time. 
RENNY: Tell them about the charity. 
GEENA: And we have a yearly charity event, called The Geena and Renny Gala. 
RENNY: It's around Christmas . . . 
GEENA: For the Children's Hospital. 
RENNY: Live televised two-hour telethon marathon. The most-watched show in Finland. 
GEENA: This is our fourth year doing this. 

Here's a question I'm sure our readers are curious about. Do you guys use computers much? If so, for what? 
RENNY: I guess I use computers much more. 
GEENA: Yeah you do . . . every day. 
RENNY: I use them in my office and at home. I have a laptop and I'm on the Internet every day. I check every morning first-thing when I get up, six o'clock in the morning. I check America Online, the front page of Variety and the articles in Variety. I check news from the Internet at least five times a day. I spend some time in some chat rooms, milking people's opinions about movies and things. Cleverly finding out where the trends are, what people are thinking. 

Do you go in under your name or a pseudonym? 
RENNY: Pseudonym. 

That's pretty unusual, don't you think? And clever. Do many other filmmakers do that? 
RENNY: I don't know if they do, but I do that all the time. I did it even when Long Kiss was opening, before it opened. I would go there and say, "Hey, has anyone heard about this movie?" And it's really interesting what kind of discussions it created. I swear I never went there saying, "Long Kiss is a great movie! Go and see it!" I was completely doing objective research. And the response was very good and very positive. I was surprised that so many people knew about the movie. And I also, on purpose, would spell out the name of the movie wrong. Most of the time I would call it The Long Kiss Goodbye, and then people would always correct me. 
GEENA: He'd say, "Who's in that movie, anyway?" and see if they'd know. 

You used a lot of special effects in The Long Kiss Goodnight in certain situations to create action scenes that didn't require dangerous stunts from your actors. Now Renny, if you hadn't been working with your wife, would you have been a little more inclined to just, say, put the actor in the middle of an explosion, rather than using a costly effect? 
RENNY: No, I think I was very tough out there. 
GEENA: Oh, yeah. Like he'd say, "Michelle, would you mind standing in the middle of this explosion?" 
RENNY: You've got to be very careful, whether it's a stunt man or an actor or anybody, that everybody is completely safe. You can do a lot of clever stuff [with effects] that people can't detect later on. 

Yeah, you've got some amazing technology at your disposal. As a director, who do you look to for inspiration? Who were the filmmakers that influenced you to follow in their footsteps? 
RENNY: For me, it was the old-time directors like Hitchcock, or Fritz Lang, or John Ford, Howard Hawks. That kind of people. 

Renny, you once said that you really admire Oliver Stone, and that you'd like to make movies similar to his. Could you elaborate on that? 
RENNY: Yes, that was really about the fact that he's taken this form of entertainment, or art, or whatever you call it, and used it as his tool to get his views out. And I hope to do that at some point, also. I have a project called Warriors of the Rainbow, which is about the birth of the Greenpeace movement. Commercially thinking, in a way, it's an adventure movie. It's about a group of young people who got together and went against huge companies and whale killers and did so very bravely. But at the same time it should send a very strong message to kids all around the world, who probably don't take part in demonstrations or read pamphlets. But if they can be entertained and learn something about the environment, it would be a kind of movie I'd like to make. 

It sounds great. What is the schedule on that? 
RENNY: It's something I've been working on for quite a while. And right now we're starting another draft of the script. Let's say, before the year 2000, I'd like to get that into the theatres.

more interview: BBC and ET Online interview