Here are some photos of Heather Graham at the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of Goodbye to All of That last week. Heather wore this oddly enchanting orange and black dress by Robert Rodriguez (the designer, not the director). The more I look at the dress, the more I like it. Anyway, Heather did an interview with Esquire last week, and she has a lot to say about sexism in Hollywood, and more. You can read the full Q&A here, and here are some highlights:
Guesting on Californication: “It’s such a guy show — it’s such a guy fantasy show.”
Playing “sexy mom” roles: “I’m just glad to be working. I’m not actually a mom in real life, so it’s fun to pretend to be one. I like to approach things the same in art as in life. You can choose to look on the positive side and enjoy whatever roles you’re given. You can find the silver lining in anything.”
Sexism in Hollywood: “I’m not saying the movie business isn’t sexist. It’s totally sexist. If you look at all the movies being made these days, eighty percent of them are about men. There’s not much I can do about it. It’s a sexist world and a sexist industry. But I’ve been very lucky as an actress, to work as much as I have and as consistently as I have. And when you don’t see the kind of stories out there that represent you, you have to make them yourself.
She’s written a sexy script: “I actually just wrote a script that I want to direct. Sex from a female point of view. But specifically women who like having sex. I don’t see anything in film about women who want to have sex. I don’t see myself and my friends represented. When do you ever get to see a movie from the point of view of a woman who’s more interested in having really great orgasms than finding a husband? I would say almost never. I’m going to try. I’d like to direct it and star in it. We’re actually in the process of casting it right now. So knock on wood, hopefully we’re doing it this summer. [In a baritone movie preview narrator voice.] And you can find out more about what gets a woman off!”
The props she’s kept from her films: “I do have the roller skates from Boogie Nights. I used to have them in this little alcove in my house, but now they’re in my closet. There was a scene in Californication where they wanted me to wear roller skates. I was like, “Noooo, I can’t do that. That makes me feel weird.” But I did go to a roller-skating party with friends a few years ago, and I wore the Rollergirl skates. I just assumed I’d remember how to skate, but I totally wiped out.”
I guess I’ve always had the impression that Heather was and is a total ditz, but this interview made me like her. I mean, she’s not a genius or anything, she’s just a happy, positive person who always finds the bright side of life. She’s correct that Hollywood is mostly a sausage party these days, and she’s also right that a woman in her position can’t do all that much about it. I’m impressed that she wrote a script… but I’m less impressed that the script is about “women who want to have sex and not find a husband.” Blah.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
She is aging well,she must be in her lates 30s or early 40s by now,she doesn’t look botoxy at all.
She is even 44!!!
And she looks amazing!!
That’s what 44 is supposed to look like Catherine Zeta Jones !!!
vampire.
(I kid, I kid (of course)…it’s what a lot of gossip sites say about her because she looks FAB.)
see, if she gave skincare advice, i would listen. Dear god she looks amazing! like she hasn’t even aged
I cant even look at this chick without thinking of her awful acting in that Flowers in the Attic. She was right on par with LL in Liz and Dick with that one.
aside from that, the botox in her forehead is giving her that deer in headlights look, must be fresh injections.
nah I think she’s always had kind of protruding eyes. She still looks great imo
I think she has point but writing a script about women who want to have sex and not a husband.. well it sounds something that can appeal to a male producer lol
Excellent point!
Not to mention a male audience. This seems like some twisted logic feminism to me. Do I feel disheartened, oppressed or under represented due to a lack of portrayals in the media of women enjoying sex? Um, no. Will my husband want to see a movie about how much heather graham loves having sex? Um, yes.
I like Heather for the most part but she has got some crazy eyes.
Yes! This!
I thought the same thing…blinky eyes blinky eyes blinky eyes. Maybe that was her only surgery. Blinky eyes.
I dunno. She speaks the truth but she’s also acquiescing to it being a “man’s world.”Like it’s not her battle to fight because that power structure has been kind to her.
When she said there’s not much she can do about it, I was ready to yell, but then glad to see she followed it up by talking about the work she’s creating. THAT is how you do something about it – you write, produce, direct, etc. The men of Hollywood are never going to suddenly give women an equal voice on their own, so women must continue to be proactive and create.
Wow, I absolutely love it – and she’s completely right. I’d love to see her script get made; we need films about women and sex that have nothing to do with snagging a husband or busting out crotch fruit. There isn’t enough representation of women in film in general (aside from the supportive girlfriend or stripper roles), and women who live independent of those kinds of expectations – pipe dream in terms of seeing it depicted positively on the screen.
I think society would rather pretend women like this don’t exist, because that’s “scary”. We DO exist though, that’s the thing.
In addition to the “snag a husband” narrative that Hollywood is consistently shoving down our throats, is the tired-ass storyline of women who are motivated solely by emotions or a sentimental connection to the man they’re having sex with.
God forbid women have the same biological needs as men, without the hysterical attachment.
This is why Sex and The City-like it or not-was so ground-breaking when it first came out.
+1, totally agree 🙂
One of the things that really got to me was how much men disliked S ATC how much grief SJP got (remember the Maxim top 5 un-sexiest women?). To me it felt like a subtle attemp to take this show that women loved, and try to twist it so that it better fit the male viewpoint. As though it was unheard of for women to love a show that started a woman that men didn’t immediately want to file away in their spank bank, and that it was unheard of for their to be a cultural phenomenon that just plain didn’t care what men thought.
Or am I totally off base here?
@Bridget, I don’t think you are off base at ALL. I am possibly one of the few willing to admit, in spite recognizing their many flaws, that I still loved both movies because at heart, they were about friendship. I cherish my “Pink Box” of SATC DVDs and often pop one in just to play in the background because it is like having friends over.
Honestly, I never got the hatred men had for the show or characters; the women were shown as being VERY flawed (remember Carrie freaking out in “The Freak Show”? Her boyfriend in that episode was shown as being the epitome of rational when he booted her from his apartment for harboring such unfounded suspicion of who he really was).
The only time I ever really got pissed at the show… well twice. “Splat!” because of the absolutely nasty message it sent about being a single, wild woman over forty, and the series finale, for not allowing just one of the four to end the show as a single, unattached woman.
I’m not seeing how her script idea combats sexism. She has based her career on being typecast as the stripper, the porn star, the sexy fill-in-the-blank… Basically, characters who are happily DTF. And now to turn the tables on all that, she writes a script about women who love strictly casual sex? (1) how is that different from every other HG role in the past? And (2) How does that possibly cast women in any other light than the women-as-sex-objects that Hollywood already projects?
Have you ever seen her in “Twin Peaks”?
Secondly, the point isn’t that women can’t be DTF. It’s that in Hollywood movies, they do it for men’s approval – to win their love, or get their dollar bills stuck in their g-strings, etc. etc. Plenty of women are happy having sex without commitment in the larger context of doing other things with their lives; our lives don’t revolve around it, though they do include it. That’s what women like us are clamoring for, to see women who play the field but aren’t *about* the field. It’s just a minor part of their daily existence.
No, i have not seen her in Twin Peaks, that was… 20-25 years ago?
I get what you’re saying about women having sex on their own terms (I agree with those invoking SATC above)…but I have extreme doubts that a movie about a woman and her quest to have “really great orgasms” starring Heather Graham is going to deliver on that and not end up being yet another vehicle catering more to male (audience and producer) approval than to the sisterhood.
I think my doubts stem from the fact she’s talking as if there are no other roles for women other than highly sexualized “guy fantasy” roles, which is not true at all, those are the roles she has repeatedly chosen to take (notwithstanding Twin Peaks I gather?). So then her reaction is to create her own role for herself and guess what, it’s Heather Graham playing a woman who pursues a lot of emotionally-unattached orgasmic sex (guy fantasy #16?).
If she wanted to be really revolutionary, how about taking on a role that is not centred on how sexy she is and her insatiable desire to have sex with every guy?
Same bs different decade. It sucks that it’s true, but unless women producers boob up and start producing well made movies with strong female leads it will not end. Every few years there’s buzz about a “woman” movie…girlpower strikes making it talked about….then it fizzles. Cycle continues…it sucks bc I dont really watch male leadmmovies a whole lot because they’re pretty boring and done to death!
She can write?
….says the woman who starred as a stripper in the hangover? I’m not trying to be harsh and I know she acknowledges the situation but still…that movie franchise definitely qualifies as a “man’s movie”…..it is racist, sexist and degrading for all types of people….still, I believe she is an extremely underated actress and I hope she does get success with her script. It does sound like a refreshing story line. Very, very pretty lady as well!
her job is to act. she stripped so what? at least it wasn’t some 22 y.o. bimbo with no talent. she pointed out what is wrong, but she needs support from other women.
on another note, I loved her since Twin Peaks. she seems like a normal, private person, someone with brains and of course, beauty. at least she said something, unlike her much more famous colleagues.
What a weird thing to complain about after she basically made a point of saying there aren’t many options for women so she’s trying to change things… And why is playing a stripper something actresses shouldn’t do anyway?
It’s true though. Let’s name all of the movies that came out with mostly female leads within the last couple of years that aren’t considered “chick flicks”. Men shy away from movies that have women stars.
Forever Roller-Girl!!
She looks great but she’s definitely hitting the Botox.
Uh, I don’t want to watch a movie about a woman whose sole goal in life is to have really great orgasms. I want a movie where the woman gets down to business and is a badass character (that doesn’t mean she has to literally kick people’s ass, but just be an awesome character), where how much sex she has or how sexy she is is not factored into the equation at all. Having a female character be all about having great orgasms and a ton of unattached sex, is still having a female character be all about sex. Just because that sex isn’t playing into what the male lead wants or finding a husband or whatever, doesn’t mean it isn’t making a female character into anything more than a sex object. That’s not what I want.
Good for Graham for writing and directing her own stuff, but I won’t be seeing it, because it’s just not the type of movie I want to spend money on. It annoys me that all the female led movies being made nowadays (aside from the YA movies) are all movies that I am not interested in as a genre in general–sorry the Heat, and Bridesmaids, and Pitch Perfect, I don’t like comedies like that. I wish they would make a great science fiction, action, adventure, fantasy movie with a great female character as the lead–hell even as a supporting role (and don’t talk to me about the YA genre because most of those girls are pretty stupid once you really analyze them).
She said she took the roles she was offered. Smart! It pays the bills. she still has those large, child-like eyes.