Evan's Blog

Outspoken actor talks artistic awakening, Hollywood burnout, battling "the dickheads"

Rose McGowan plays a series of surreally stylized characters in her "RM486" video.

“I have, obviously, shit to say,” said Rose McGowan earlier this week at a suite in New York’s Edition Hotel, where she was promoting her directorial debut, the short film, Dawn. “I’m not saying it’s good stuff, but I’m saying I’ve got stuff to say.” For almost 30 minutes, McGowan and I talked about Hollywood (McGowan is best known for her roles in things like Scream, Charmed, and The Doom Generation), fame at a young age (“It fucked me up”), and the controversial statements she made last year on Bret Easton Ellis’s podcast regarding misogyny amongst gay men and the state of the struggle (“I see now people who have basically fought for the right to stand on top of a float wearing an orange Speedo and take molly”).

Having written about those statements, I couldn’t wait to talk to McGowan about that last point specifically, and she did not disappoint. She was quick, fiery, and poised to argue but seemingly happy to explain. We hurtled through a series of topics and I’m preserving much of our conversation in the transcript below (which has been lightly condensed and edited for clarification).

But, first, here's Dawn in its entirety:


And here's Rose and me:

Gawker: Making this movie was sort of a political act for you, right?
Rose McGowan: That’s a really interesting way to couch it. You’re the first person who said so. I would agree with you. It is. I tried to make it a very layered piece. I wanted to say something about class disparity without saying it, and you can do that by just having perfect furniture and somebody who’s got dingy jeans sitting on it. And then the two men that she references in the movie are Tab Hunter and Rock Hudson, both gay. All that stuff is not on accident.

Why make a short instead of a feature? Are you dipping your toe in?
No, I was really inspired by the exercise Hemingway gave his writer friends, which was to see if they could write a full story in six words. His was “Baby shoes for sale, never worn.” That always resonated with me. I saw a lot of movies that couldn’t seem to tell a full story in two and a half hours. I wanted to see if I could do a full story in 18 minutes. It was actually just a personal challenge. I think a lot of shorts are made trying to get them made into features and I actually don’t want to make Dawn into a feature. It is what it is. It stands on its own.

In terms of content, it seems like there’s a pro-woman, if not feminist, guiding hand at work.
It’s just shining a light on something. I don’t know if that means feminist. I would hope that a man could have easily done this, too.

He wouldn’t have, though.
He wouldn’t have, that’s the thing. I mean, the sad part is that there are a lot of male writers and they’re told to write what they know and they write men. That’s how we come up with some not very complex characters.

But then the alternative is something like Top Five. Have you seen that?
Not yet.

In it is a gay character who’s ridiculed for being gay.
Literally he was a scapegoat? A punching bag?

Yeah. And it struck me: This is what happens when straight men write gay characters.
But what if I had made it? Would I have gotten reamed? Yes.

You think so?
Yes. I would never do that because my friends are men and women that happen to be gay. They’re not gay first. It’s just [about] people understanding that it’s humans first. To say Dawn is feminist, yes, but it’s because I’m a woman so it has to be, but I’m a humanist. But how you felt about seeing that gay character, imagine how I feel about seeing women in movies all the time. Or playing them.

Do you regret anything you’ve played?
Yes. (Laughs) I had a very big agent who basically did the mind-meld on me: “Do this movie about wrestling.” I threw the script in the garbage three times because that’s where it deserved to be. It was Ready to Rumble. It was a lot of money. She just didn’t care, and I mistook her for someone who was a strong woman. What she really was was a mercenary woman. And there’s a difference—and one who didn’t like me, either. A lot of agents aren’t supportive of their talent in any way. Nobody’s understood how to represent me, which is why, other than film publicists, I currently have no representation other than my lawyer. I don’t need it. She said, “If you do this movie for Warner Bros, they’ll stick you in the next Clint Eastwood movie.” OK, I do the stupid movie, I’m trying to have an out-of-body experience the whole time, like, “How is this happening to me? I can’t believe I agreed to do this.” And I did it, I brought it, ‘cause that’s what I do. And it was silly and, whatever, harmless. But not really—it was really harmful to me.

Psychically?
In my psyche, it was very harmful for me. And I was so deeply uncomfortable. And of course, I come to find out that the Clint Eastwood people didn’t know me from Adam. She just straight-up lied. And that was very common in my history.

I assume there’s no coincidence that you’re making your foray into filmmaking in your 40’s...
Not at all.

Really? Because 40 is when they say...
You don’t understand my life, first of all. I spent the last seven years dismantling...I have a very big life beyond what people see on the outside, including you. And that’s understandable because I never told anybody anything. I’m not one of those people that goes on TV and gives everybody updates on my current movements. I’m a businesswoman, I own a lot of businesses, a lot of real estate, I’m kind of a baller in many other worlds. This one I came back to a year and a half ago, like, “Oh wait, I’m an artist. Hey, OK, I got this.” Has nothing to do with my age, nothing to do with disappearing roles. I disappeared from the roles long before they disappeared from me ‘cause I didn’t care. There was no reason to care. I was bringing it and nobody else around me was. I worked with a lot of great directors, possibly on their lazier projects. Acting has nothing to do with what I’m directing.

But does your time in Hollywood have anything to do with it?
No.

There’s a dearth of female directors...
No. It’s completely coincidental.

Really?
It just happened to be that I was like, “Oh.” The problem for me was that I would get on set and I would be shocked at the house my character was in or shocked that these are the actors that are across from me, shocked that these are the clothes I’m wearing. “What is happening?” It was because I directed the whole thing in my head. I was just in the wrong job. It’s not really that dramatic. I was just in the wrong job.

A large part of it was I was discovered and within a year and a half, I was famous. And when you spend your life playing and being other people, it’s fucked up. You’re only you in your off time. And when I got stuck on a TV show, that was about 15 hours a day for five years straight, other than like a month and a half in the summer. I was so exhausted, there’s not a lot of time for personal development.

I don’t feel like sticking myself in a movie. If I had the motivation I believe you possibly felt I had, would I not be sticking myself in the movie? Creating a part for myself? I have not.

The stereotype is that there are no good roles...
But that doesn’t even matter to me. I don’t want to act, so it doesn’t matter.

You accepted the New York Film Critics Circle award for Jennifer Kent and talked about the lack of female directors, so I figured you were seeing a space and stepping up.
I’m stepping up because no one else is. There are some, they’re starting to get louder, but I realized as an artist you’re in an un-fireable position. And actually we all are. All of us humans cannot be fired from being ourselves. We can be fired from our jobs, we can not be hired for a job, but we can’t be fired. We’re us. And we’re legion. And it’s an amazing feeling and an amazing, empowered feeling.

Is it an amazing feeling being Rose McGowan?
Right now it is. I earned it. I fucking earned it. I had a very colorful life way before Hollywood. I spent my life surviving. And I’m not in survival mode right now and that’s an amazing thing.

You said if you’d done the gay character in Top Five, you would have been reamed for it. Do you think you were reamed last year [for your comments about gay male apathy]?
That was bullshit.

Why?
Why was that bullshit? Because I was actually speaking very specifically about a group of guys in West Hollywood that were mad at me. I was not speaking about all gays. That’s dumb. They can’t all fit on a float, I know this. That was hatcheted up, and I think it’s ‘cause I went after, honestly, some leaders in the gay community and so as payback they kind of hatcheted up what I said, and I was like, “Really? What’s what you’re going to do?” And the problem is now, there are so many people that are keyboard activists. “I feel pious because I don’t go to the Beverly Hills Hotel.” You know what, why don’t you feel pious by not going to a movie and not getting gas? Why don’t you feel pious about [Richard] Branson who’s like, “I’ll never let any of my Virgin employees stay there,” and then he just did a huge deal with Brunei? So, shut up. The reality is the Beverly Hills Hotel is a living history museum. We don’t have many of those in Los Angeles. My thing was about saving it, and also, duh: don’t protest it, take it over. It was pretty ballsy to have a party with 100 gay guys and women there and have them make out in the hallway. Those pictures I sent to the sultan.

[The Beverly Hills Hotel stuff] you’re referencing is part of the podcast that didn’t get passed around—the pull quotes [about gay misogyny, floats, and molly] were what caused the stir.
Of course. And the pull quotes were cut up, as they do. It was shocking at first. It’s very weird to have a phone where you can touch an app and all this hate or whatever comes through. And it’s like, “You’re not even understanding—I’m speaking about a very specific group of people who are very 1 percent.” How many people are really protesting the Beverly Hills Hotel? What percentage of the 99 versus the 1 percent is feeling pious because they’re not going and getting a $35 cheeseburger? I don’t care about the cheeseburger. I care about the employees and I care about the place itself. It’s living and breathing. There’s so much history there and I’m basically an amateur Hollywood historian. I’m on the board of the Film Noir Society. I also did a show on TCM. I’ve studied film since I was 4 with my father. The classic film stuff is in my blood. So for me, it was really just about that. And it was also about the gay community...maybe needs to be shook up a little. Why are there sacred cows? These are men first. So why would they be different? And in fact, they can put a lot of their lives together completely excluding women. I know they relate on the underdog part, but what happens when you’re no longer the underdog?

I think that gay people are still underdogs largely per the legislation of our country.
Largely. Of course.

But it’s like you were saying, your movie’s feminist because you’re a humanist...
Right, so there’s a gay struggle because it exists because you are. It will cease. It will come. It’s the fastest growing civil rights movement in United States history, and I’m fucking proud of how far you guys and women have come. I’m fucking proud of it, but you forget the women. Believe me, I hear the gays, and I’ll use the word slander... [from] my friends, my gay friends...I was a runaway taken in by three trans women and a stripper named Tina, and I grew up protecting the kids on the playground. I was an outsider. I was a weirdo. I was Wednesday Addams from the Addams Family, basically—the Addams Family of intellectuals and activists. We were the weirdos on every block everywhere, and that was fucking great because I didn’t bother fitting in. My mother asked me if I wanted to assimilate more and I said, “Look at their shoes. No.”

To have people that are not fully developed in their brains torture other people just because they challenge something, just by existing. That’s not fair and that’s not OK in my book, so I’ll fight for them. I was out there, believe me, the night of Prop 8, marching. And I thought that was mishandled. There’s so many things, but there is a pay-it-forward part of this that needs to be happening.

Did you like what Patricia Arquette said after the Oscars?
Of course I did. Because she’s right.

I thought she was right, too. A lot of people felt like she wasn’t being intersectional enough...
Why should she be? Are you guys?

Well...
Are you?

Yes.
You, maybe specifically.

I’m interviewing you...
I’m interviewing you.

No, I’m not saying, “I’M interviewing YOU.” I’m saying I’m interested in what women (and people of color) do. My job is not activist but it is to be aware, and I care...
And I appreciate that.

I do my small part.
Right. It’s a small part and it can be bigger.

I think that’s the bigger point, there’s this utter selfishness in contemporary American culture...
That’s the thing! That’s what I’m talking about. That’s what I want: people to be 10 percent better. Ten percent better versions of themselves. That’s it. If people were just 10 percent better, including myself, in all areas, in heart, in soul, in design, in thought...like, go one step beyond the obvious. And then, you’ll have a lot more understanding of other people and I think the world will actually change. And it’s not that hard. And the paying it forward to me—I hate that term, but I don’t know what else to call it—is, for me when it hit a moment, was the vote. I was waiting for the NAACP, I was waiting for the gay rights leaders, I was waiting for them to denounce that vote on the senate floor voting down equal pay for women. I’m like, “Do you not represent women ostensibly? Do they not pay your dues as well?” Where are you? That’s not OK. So I was angry that day [of the podcast], but I was also angry about being misinterpreted by a group of people from West Hollywood primarily, so that’s who I was talking to. I’ve had some time to think about it and maybe I’m right. Not for everybody. Not with a huge, sweeping generalization. I have gay friends who donated to NARAL and Planned Parenthood on my behalf. Like I said, everyone can’t fit on a float. I wanna be a on a float, I’ve been on a float, I know how many people can fit on a float.

I haven’t been on a float in 10 years.
I’ve been on a float, and I’ll rock that shit.

I haven’t done molly in a year, either.
It doesn’t work on me. I’ve tried. It sucks. It’s so unfair. I think I was the only sober person at Coachella. I wanted to kill myself.

The older I get the more wary I am of doing a drug that’s going to fuck up my next day, my next two days, my next three days.
That’s the thing, in like 10 years or whatever, you have no idea. But my father...one of the things I champion is I’m on the board of the Daughters of Pulmonary Fibrosis. It’s a horrible disease that killed my dad. He was a vegan for 25 years, hiked two hours a day way before it was popular. He would put our cereal in brown paper bags. Never owned a microwave. And he got a horrible lung disease that is idiopathic, so it’s not caused by anything in specific, and it killed him. And he was a giant of a man. It was like watching the lion of the pride go behind the bush to die. It was intense.

That was part of the last seven years for me. Recovering from being paralyzed in my right arm. Recovering from a car accident. Basically, everything had to break in order for me to reform, to become myself not [only] in the off period. Imagine everyday you go to work, you’re saying something someone else wrote for you to say. You’re not even speaking for yourself. It’s very strange. I have, obviously, shit to say. (Laughs) I’m not saying it’s good stuff, but I’m saying I’ve got stuff to say.

How much did being a young famous person fuck you up?
It fucked me up. It didn’t fuck me up in terms of turning into a cliche. I was never arrested, I never did any of that stuff. I had always wanted to go dance on a table in a red dress but because of the environment at the time—the internet was crazy, it was the Lindsay Lohan era—I just left. I was like, “Peace out, losers. This is not my bag. I’m not playing this game. I will not be for sale.” I had a publicist that was like, “Why don’t you call me one day when you’re looking cute?” I was like, “Excuse me?” She said, “We’ll send our photographer down so we can get coverage, you know if you’re in a store and you look cute.” I was like, “What?” I thought about it for about two seconds and was like, “I absolutely cannot do that.” My father used to collect Edward S. Curtis prints and he did a lot of amazing prints of Native Americans and studied that culture. My father did as well. They say they feel the camera steals your soul. So I’m here to steal others.

But you’re not going to continue the cycle?
No. I never did, really. My thing was always like, “You want me to play on the red carpet? Let’s fucking play. Let’s go hard. You want me to play? You want me to be your show pony? I’ll be your fucking show pony.” Why not? Why is everything a sacred cow? I realized that all of these rules that are put down for us, they’re all illusions. They’re not there. I’m not saying, “Fuck you,” to the rules, the rules simply don’t exist.

That’s what irritates me when people complain about societal expectations. It’s like...
I don’t care! It’s like Madonna says: I’m not your bitch, don’t hang your shit on me. If this is how you want to approach marriage, do it. Don’t put it on me. If this is how you want to approach your religion, do it. Don’t put it on me. Whatever your deal is, do it. Keep your side of the street clean and leave mine alone, ‘cause your thought doesn’t count unless I invite you in and maybe we can exchange thoughts and be better and that’s amazing.

Actor and director made headlines after railing at a misogynist casting call for an Adam Sandler film, but says Wenzel had already left agency Innovative

Rose McGowan has confirmed her agent Sheila Wenzel was not responsible for “firing” the actor and director in the wake of her critical comments regarding sexism in Hollywood.

It is understood Wenzel left agency Innovative prior to McGowan’s infamous tweet on June 17, in which she railed at a casting note calling for actors to show off their cleavage with push-up bras. She later revealed the call was for an unspecified Adam Sandler film.

McGowan made headlines around the world on Thursday when she tweeted that she had been “fired” by her “wussy acting agent” for pointing out “the bullshit in Hollywood”. The Hollywood Reporter later named her agents as Sheila Wenzel and Steve Muller at Innovative Artists.

I just got fired by my wussy acting agent because I spoke up about the bullshit in Hollywood. Hahaha. #douchebags #awesome #BRINGIT

— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) June 25, 2015

However, the actor has since taken to Twitter to clarify that Wenzel was not involved in her departure, calling her “a wonderful agent that ceased working with Innovative before my firing”. Wenzel also appeared to show support for McGowan on Twitter, retweeting a post in which the actor said the wonderful thing about being an artist was that “you can’t be fired from your own mind”.

Sheila Wenzel is a wonderful agent that ceased working with Innovative before my firing. She's a good, strong woman I'm proud to know.

— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) June 25, 2015

Meanwhile, a report in Variety quotes a source at Sandler’s production company Happy Madison who denied all responsibility for the offending casting note. “They were not aware the casting director sent this note out,” the source said. “They felt it was completely inappropriate and have made sure that it has not been sent out again.”

Wenzel had also worked with Amanda Seyfried and Tomorrowland’s Britt Robertson at Innovative. On Thursday afternoon the under-fire agency issued a statement to the Hollywood Reporter confirming the departure. “Sheila Wenzel, Rose McGowan’s primary agent, parted ways with Innovative before McGowan’s tweet yesterday,” the statement reads. “Wenzel was not the primary agent for Amanda Seyfried and Britt Robertson.”

McGowan received support on Twitter yesterday from the Oscar-winning actor and feminist Jessica Chastain, who said her treatment confirmed “the misogyny underpinning the industry”.

As do I. Her treatment confirms the misogyny underpinning the industry. She should be celebrated for speaking out.👏 https://t.co/yUyO0LXkFd

— Jessica Chastain (@jes_chastain) June 25, 2015

 Sourece: The Guardian

"I just got fired by my wussy acting agent because I spoke up about the bullshit in Hollywood," the actress tweeted Wednesday.

Rose McGowan appears to be changing agents.

In a Twitter message posted June 17, the Charmed actress criticized the wardrobe description for a part in a film that she received an audition script for. She said the forthcoming film stars a male actor whose name rhymes with "Madam Panhandler," and she later confirmed to E! that the star is Adam Sandler.

She pointed out that actresses auditioning for the role were told to wear a "black (or dark) form-fitting tank that shows off cleavage (push-up bras encouraged). And form-fitting leggings or jeans."

On Wednesday, McGowan tweeted that she had been dropped by her agent following the flap.

"I just got fired by my wussy acting agent because I spoke up about the bullshit in Hollywood. Hahaha. #douchebags #awesome #BRINGIT," she tweeted.

McGowan, who has recently appeared on Crackle's Chosen and ABC's Once Upon a Time, had been repped by Sheila Wenzel and Steve Muller at Innovative Artists. Wenzel and Muller did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

McGowan's tweets can be seen below.

casting note that came w/script I got today. For real. name of male star rhymes with Madam Panhandler hahahaha I die pic.twitter.com/lCWGTV537t

— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) June 18, 2015

I just got fired by my wussy acting agent because I spoke up about the bullshit in Hollywood. Hahaha. #douchebags #awesome #BRINGIT

— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) June 25, 2015

The awesome thing about being an artist? You can't be fired from your own mind. #FREEDOM

— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) June 25, 2015

McGowan, 41, who recently made the jump to directing with the critically acclaimed Sundance short Dawn, has described her reasons for making the initial comment in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.

“It was just so dumb,” she said. “I was offended by the stupidity more than anything. I was offended by the fact that went through so many people’s hands and nobody red flagged it. This is normal to so many people. It was probably even a girl that had to type it up. It’s institutionally OK.

“The part that made me laugh was where it said, ‘Make sure you read the script so you understand the context of the scene,’” said McGowan. “That was the part that made me laugh the hardest.”

McGowan said she was “not trying to vilify Adam Sandler”, but added: “Although someone did tell me that when he did his Netflix deal, he said, ‘I signed with Netflix because it rhymes with Wet Chicks.’ I mean, what? What in the fuck is going on? No!”

The actor, who will make her feature film directing debut on the upcoming thriller The Pines, said she had battled Hollywood sexism for more than two decades.

“When I did my first film, I was told by my agent that I would need to have long hair so men in this town would want to fuck me and hire me,” she said. “That was said to a 17-year-old.”

Source: The Hollywood Reporter & The Guardian

The '90s star and first-time feature filmmaker made a passionate plea at last night's New York Film Critics Circle awards gala.

 

With film critic Armond White ousted from the New York Film Critics Circle last year, after allegedly heckling "12 Years a Slave" director Steve McQueen during McQueen's acceptance speech at the organization's annual awards ceremony, this year's edition was unsurprisingly a more muted affair; and all the better for it.

Freed from the negativity that plagued last year's event, last night's ceremony -- held for the first time at TAO, the cavernous Pan-Asian eatery located in Manhattan's Meatpacking District -- was a wholly celebratory one, attended by most of last night's winners, including Richard Linklater, Marion Cotillard, Patricia Arquette, J.K. Simmons and Timothy Spall. Everyone was gracious in accepting their awards. Simmons fondly recalled his time living in New York and how much it means to receive an award from the city's film critics. Spall spoke of his long career and how he "fucking loves" being recognized for his work.

Rose McGowan at the 2015 New York Film Critics Circle Awards on January 5, 2015 in New York.

But arguably the best speech of the night didn't come from one of the night's winners, it came from Rose McGowan, one of the night's presenters. The actress -- who spoke with Indiewire before the show got underway about her feature directorial debut, which is currently in the works -- was on hand to award Best First Film to Australian newcomer Jennifer Kent for her startling horror film "The Babadook," and accept the honor on Kent's behalf since Kent couldn't make it out.

The Babadook

McGowan kicked off her speech by singling herself and Kent out as part of the paltry six percent of female filmmakers currently working in the industry. While she said she wasn't there to "rehash statistics" she deems "depressing," she did champion the need for more female voices in film with infectious passion.

"Let's give the six percent a shot," she at one point said. "'Cause that represents 50 percent of the audience, of which I am a member. I am not being served and I am not being heard. I ask you to take up the hand of the female director until we no longer say 'female director.' It is a unisex term. I am a director. Jennifer Kent is a director. Let’s do smart, let’s bring it. She did. I think she's thrown down the gauntlet. When they say, 'Oh, the box office is down,' it's perhaps because we don’t more fucking superhero movies! It’s time. It’s getting a little old and Jennifer is a wonderful, dedicated director and I can’t wait to see what she does next."

We can't either.

Source: Indiewire

Rose McGowan attending  "Dawn" premiere at Downtown Independent theater on September 19 in Los Angeles.

The “Grindhouse” actress said directing the short film “Dawn” will launch the next phase of her career

For some, appearing on the cover of Rolling Stone is a career pinnacle, a childhood fantasy attained. For Rose McGowan, a suggestive pose on a 2007 issue of the iconic magazine was a wakeup call.

“I just had this bouffant hairdo, this big bubble hairdo, this weird Photoshopped forehead that they gave me — I don't know why exactly, because my forehead was fine, last I checked — and this dark fake tan, and I'm chest-to-chest with Rosario Dawson and an ammo belt around my hip was the only clothing I had on,” McGowan remembered in a conversation with TheWrap on Monday. ”And I was like, Who is that?”

The trouble wasn't so much just that those specific photographers and designers at that specific magazine had put them in a less-than-comfortable pose (to promote Grindhouse), but that the cover represented everything that she had come to hate about her career and industry.

“It's always part and parcel of it, you're expected as a woman, this is what you trade off of, this is how you sell tickets to the movies, this is your part of it,” she rattled off, regretting the state of the business. “Your job as a promoter is this: They're not sticking a guy on the cover doing it, unless it's like Seth Rogen doing a joke. So as a woman I'm expected to sell myself, my body, my image, my sexuality, in order to get your ticket sales up. It's kind of fucked up. And it's like, wait, I wasn't aware that when I signed on to act, I had to sell myself that much.”

And so McGowan retreated from Hollywood, more or less, taking time to travel and study and appearing in fewer projects (most notably an arc in Nip/Tuck and a supporting role in Conan the Barbarian in 2009). During this time, she says, she found both her true self and her true passion, which together led to her directorial debut on the short film Dawn.

A 1961-set story about a teenage girl lured into danger by older kids with bright smiles and dark intentions, Dawn is a lush, impressive debut, and one that McGowan says will launch the next phase of her career.

TheWrap: You've been in the industry for most of your life, so when did you decide that you wanted to direct?
McGowan: I think it just actually came out of the writers, who are my friends, it came from an outside source, instead of an internal source, and then it all just clicked. And all my years of frustration, I was like oh, I can actually do something about this.

It seems like we're in both a permission-based industry, and also the sense that you can go do it yourself because things aren't as expensive to make. There's a weird split there.
McGowan: There is a big schism in this industry; if you're on the actor's side, it's like, here is what you're allowed to do, or what we're gonna let you do, and maybe you'll get this, and maybe you won't. Where the other side of this is just, go be a maverick and just do it yourself, which as it turns out, is more in line with my process.

How long did it take you to shoot?
McGowan: It was a four-day shoot, but pro-rated, if it was a full feature, it probably would have been about 30. Budget-wise, it was a big undertaking. We had water tankers on set, it had to go with us through the forest when we were driving… It was pretty intensive, but I handled things very well. I always have, I've just never really gotten the credit for it.

I read that this story was loosely based on your mother, in some way? Why did you connect with the story?
McGowan: I connected with it because of my mother, it wasn't loosely based on her. It was a study of those kind of themes, obviously anything story-wise, no, but the maternal influence was very much there.

The struggle of women throughout the ages have been legend. And they still go on. Dawn, set in 1961, has a lot of parallels to today. It's a little more subtle now, but [sexism] is still endemic in the world and in our culture.

This summer, it seems to come to light more than ever, maybe it's finally just being exposed a little bit, even with the NFL, what's happening there.
McGowan: Exactly, and it's like, Jesus, really? It's taken this much time? But at least it's getting there. But like, really? It just gets so boring. That part for me is that it just gets so boring. All of these like, it's the same treatment of women throughout the ages, we haven't moved on yet, people?

Does it seem like we're having this conversation more this summer?
McGowan: For me, if I was going to think about it, I would say that it's probably something akin to people feeling like we've moved on, we're now a more civilized society, but it's just a veneer. The true problems are all still there. You don't discuss them. You don't discuss the fact that violence against women is so huge in this problem. All those gun statistics deaths, besides for inner-cities, it's women, that's who's getting killed. I was in Colorado doing a movie and every day in the newspaper, it was like, “Woman gets killed by her ex-husband, ex-boyfriend, etc.” and you're like ugh.

And imagine what a good old boys [club] the NFL must be. What a nightmare. I thank god I'm not a football player every day.

At least they're finally feeling some heat.
McGowan: At least they finally are. And they'll feeling heat from people who are thinking, progressive males, which is heartening.

I'm always torn because making the topic of an interview that someone is a woman director is putting an asterisk on the work they've made, you must be sick of it.
McGowan: It's just like female comedians. It's a gender-neutral position. It makes me a little bit crazy.

But at the same time, the numbers are pretty terrible, so if you don't talk about it…
McGowan: Oh, they're horrifying. Believe me, the NFL might have nothing on us.

So do you get annoyed by those questions? Do you feel they're annoying but essential?
McGowan: It's really tricky, because it sets you up in a way that, as a woman answering it, you're bound and you have duct tape across your mouth, and if you say something, it's like, you're just another woman harping on… but it's like no, it's just reality. I'm not a woman harping on anything. It's just a fact. I wish it weren't a fact. I would love to never talk about that again, wouldn't that be exciting, wouldn't it be exciting just to talk about work? How great would that be? So freeing, because that's what it's about.

The last I heard, the sex I was born didn't really come into play with what I'm doing, other than to other people. I didn't check with myself that morning and say, as a woman director, I wonder how I'm going to approach this scene? Do you know how silly that sounds?

But the statistics are so grim, and so I'm going to do something about that. And I think it's time.

Do you have plans to direct a feature? Is that the next thing in your career?
McGowan: Yeah, absolutely. I'm in negotiations for two right now. One's a big one, and one is a more indie one. This is what I love, I've finally really, really, really found my passion, more than anything.

So people see the short and say oh wow, we have to take her seriously as a director now!
McGowan: Basically yes. As an actor, you're not taken seriously because you're given the roles you're “allowed” to be given, and you're trying to make a living, you're trying to survive and you're trying to do this so you take the best of what is out there. In my case, it was a bit of a Jessica Rabbit case in the past, where it's like, “I'm not that, I'm just drawn this way,” where my brain is very different. But because of what I look like, I got stuck doing a lot of certain things that didn't necessarily go in line with how I think.

Do you think that now that you've entered this new phase, can you find acting roles that are more suited to your thought process and personality?
McGowan: Absolutely. I literally just signed on to two movies to act in and again, I think it's what you put out in the universe maybe to an extent is what you get back. Things rise up to meet you. The two movies that I'm in negotiations to act in are very very different than anything I've really done before. Just not trading on any physical aspect of anything. One is a goofy trio of people that hunts for ghosts, so it's kind of idiots, basically. A trio of idiots. And that's a comedy. And one is just a psychological drama about this woman and her husband whose life gets torn about by someone having false memories or maybe real memories of the husband committing a crime. So their life just gets dismantles. It's cool, it's stuff with some meat on it.

Source: TheWrap

McGowan at "Dawn" premiere at Sundance.

Source: Fox News

Rose McGowan at Apothic Rose Launch Party