Home > Author > Rose McGowan
1 " I remember the exact moment, walking down Tenth Street in Seattle, when I started to see myself through men’s eyes. Horns started honking and I heard men yelling. I looked around to see what was going on. There was nothing. Just me. I was what was going on. I was the reason for the noise. Except for it wasn’t really me that was the reason, it was my body and my face. "
― Rose McGowan , Brave
2 " That poor girl's been brainwashed into thinking her beauty is all she's worth, because from the time she was a little child she's been getting compliments about her beauty. And it becomes something you think you owe other people. "
3 " I was thirty-one at this point. I was deep in the grips of Hollywood conditioning. The thing is, I was always playing roles that were younger, at least five years younger, which amplified my twisted perception of aging. You have done something wrong! You have lived! You start feeling crazier with each birthday that passes. "
4 " As an actor, you trick and abuse your emotions, bringing pain up only to have to shove it back down when you hear, 'CUT!' I believe acting, dramatic acting, is a form of self-abuse. Take after take of pulling up dark emotions only to seal them up when camera stops rolling... "
5 " When I was in the Cult of Hollywood, I'd put myself down and say In had useless talents. [...] but it wasn't my official job, so to my mind it was a useless talent. [...] but I never pursued it as an additional career because it was what others did professionally, not me. No one told me I could do whatever I wanted to. "
6 " It’s an open secret in good old Hollywood. When charges are filed (rarely), the studios just continually settle with the victims, and use their PR machines to invalidate the claims. Usually where there is smoke there is an inferno, especially as Hollywood is concerned. "
― Rose McGowan
7 " The whole time I was in the meeting [with Aaron Spelling], I was imagining him with blue troll doll hair. That's what I often did so I wouldn't be nervous. "
8 " When I met this man, I thought he was all those things. What I didn't realize is that these quizzes [in lady's magazines] would serve better if they asked what you do NOT want in a partner. [...] Knowing what you don't want is more important than than what you do want, because the reality is, we rarely dream as big for ourselves as the universe can; by knowing what your nos are, you get to the yes, and the yes is bigger that you maybe imagined. It would have served me well to have steered clear of the controlling, manipulative, and violent. "
9 " Do not bend yourself to make others feel taller. When someone comes at you telling you what you are and slapping a label on you, simply ask them why. Why would you say that? Make THEM think. "
10 " And THAT is how you fall into an abusive relationship: when you start acting in a way so as not to upset the other person or set them off. You’ve given away control of your own life, bit by bit, bit by bit. It’s incremental, until one day, you have hidden so much of yourself you get lost. "
11 " It was a brutal schedule. I would be on the airplane going back Monday morning at six after shooting all Sunday night, every time barely making my flight. When I arrived in Los Angeles, I had to rush straight to the Paramount studios and be a whole other person, this wildly different character, Paige. My brain was starting to scramble on top of its already fragile state. "
12 " I was being photographed by a gay male who was imagining me as what he thinks a straight man wants to fuck, and he was doing so on behalf of a director, a straight male who was interpreting me with his little boy brain on behalf of the studio, also male, who were interpreting me based on who they want to sell tickets to, which is this invisible horde of boys and men. The male gaze is real, ladies and gentlemen, and it is deep. "
13 " Hollywood publicists, whom you're told you must have and who cost around $6000 per month, tell you what you should act like, look like, talk like — how you should respond to the press. They prey on fear and manipulate actors by threatening: 'Oh, the studio will be really upset with you if you don't do this. "
14 " It was the programming that is given to us girls from the first, the programming that says men's careers are more important than ours. I tended to go out with powerful men who treated my career like a hobby whereas theirs was the real deal. I think a lot of women do that too. I hope you look at your own life and recognize whether you are minimizing it, because I did. "
15 " RR [Robert Rodriguez] of course said the traditional macho thing: 'I'm going to beat him up.' Of course he never did, never would: you see, RR was a faux tough guy. As most bullies are. "
16 " When I'd see how these producers reacted when they saw [Marilyn] Manson, I'd think to myself, You're in the entertainment business, what part of entertainment do you not get? "
17 " The bizarre thing about the industry is: you were discovered because you were unique. What was special about you when you were discovered, they do their damnedest to remove, not unlike what traditional society does to children. "
18 " When I hear someone say they are not creative, I immediately think, you poor thing, they got to you. At what point was your creativity stolen from you? How old were you when they homogenized your mind?Because that is what non-creative thinking is: homogenized though. "
19 " I went through the emotions as it was really happening to me, because that's what acting is after all. [...] All told, I was fake married three times on film before my 'real' marriage. By then, I was repeating an emotional scene I'd already played. Your entertainment comes at a cost to us performers. "
20 " ...if you are a beautiful girl in LA, countless men come up and say, "Are you an actress?" just to see if they can sleep with you. "
