Geena Davis attends the Thelma & Louise 30th anniversary screening. Photograph: Amy Sussman/Getty Images Geena Davis attends the Emmy Awards in Sept. 2022. This month, she spoke with NPR's Morning Edition about her movie career and upcoming memoir.

In July 1999, Davis was one of 300 women who vied for a semifinals berth in the U.S. Olympic archery team to participate in the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics. [79] [5] She placed 24th and did not qualify for the team, but participated as a wild-card entry in the Sydney International Golden Arrow competition. [80] In August 1999, she stated that she was not an athlete growing up and that she entered archery in 1997, two years before her tryouts. [79] Filmography [ edit ] Film [ edit ] Year Davis was in her 40s when she had children; almost as if she finally had time for that when movie roles dried up. When watching children’s programming, she noticed that boy characters were much more plentiful and got more action-oriented roles. She started an organization to study gender roles in media, which worked with the film and TV industry to correct the inequities and help inspire girls to have greater aspirations.Oscars: Read Brad Pitt's Acceptance Speech for Best Supporting Actor". The Hollywood Reporter. February 9, 2020. As a teen-ager, you spent a year on an exchange program in Sweden, which is definitely not something I knew about you. Have you retained your Swedish? Hoffman offered her advice — including a warning not to sleep with co-stars — and acting tips, as Davis recalls in the book. In particular, she says he helped teach her to quiet the voice in her head that was always telling her she should have done better. Despite her relatively small part, he took her to "the dailies" to watch what she had filmed the day before. Being a huge Geena Davis fan, I was DYING OF ANTICIPATION to read her memoir. It’s funny, raw, and honest. The title is perfect! It details her journey to stardom and everything she’s accomplished since then. Working on Tootsie taught Davis a lot about the craft, as well as the logistics of moviemaking. For example, she recalls that she incorrectly assumed that everyone in the cast needed to be on set every day, so would arrive every morning and spend hours just watching other peoples' scenes.

You were extremely visible in popular culture in the early half of the nineties, and then, starting in 1996­—the year you turned forty—for about a decade you were almost gone, except for the “Stuart Little” movies. Of course, we always hear about women in Hollywood turning forty and suddenly not getting roles, but I’d like to hear about what happened from your perspective. Do you turn forty, and the phone just stops ringing? No, I was still completely wimpy out of character. But I changed a lot during that movie. And Susan and I became really good friends, which we still are. It just gave me an insight into a whole new way to live. And, of course, at one point in the movie I take on the leader role, when we run out of money and I hold up a liquor store. We’re reversing roles, because I need to take charge to help her out. It was fabulous. Kaplan, Ilana (October 11, 2022). "Geena Davis on Childhood Trauma, a Cut Scene From A League of Their Own, and Her Memoir, Dying of Politeness". Vanity Fair . Retrieved November 4, 2022. Davis, now 66, announced her intention to be in the movies at the age of three, thus displaying a penchant for attention-seeking quite at odds with the prevailing mores of Wareham, Massachusetts, in the 1950s. Even her name comes from a desire to avoid being impolite. For years, Davis fondly thought her mother didn’t know the correct way of spelling “Gina”; she was well into her 20s before her mother explained: “I didn’t want anyone to think it was pronounced ‘gina’. As in va-gina.” “It turned out my entire identity was based on the fear of vaginas,” Davis notes drily. There’s the director who asked her to audition by sitting on his lap while he rubbed his face in her breastsany woman who fights for other women to have more opportunities to be badasses is a friend of mine. and geena is hilarious. would recommend. And she has long advocated for inclusion and equal representation of women in the entertainment industry — including by founding the nonprofit Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, which won the prestigious Governors Award at last month's Emmys. Davis was born on January 21, 1956, in Wareham, Massachusetts. [2] Her mother, Lucille ( néeCook), was a teacher's assistant, and her father, William F. Davis, was a civil engineer and church deacon. Both were from small towns in Vermont. [3] Davis has an older brother, Danforth ("Dan"). [4]

I’m sorry you had to go through that. There’s advice Dustin Hoffman gave you during the making of Tootsie for how to stave off sexual advances: To say, “Oh, I would love to—you’re very attractive—but I wouldn’t want to ruin the sexual tension between us.” Have you ever passed it on to anyone else? Well, my mom knew from early on that I was going to be extremely tall, and she was on me from the beginning to not slouch my shoulders. Before I even would have thought of slouching my shoulders, she was, like, “You have to stand up straight.” And so I would find ways to curve my hips out, which would maybe make me a little shorter, or perch on things. But I really wanted to be small. United States: US Senators Make New Effort to Ratify Women's Treaty". Asia News Monitor. Bangkok. November 19, 2010. Retrieved January 21, 2021. "Geena Davis brought some media attention to Thursday's proceedings. First, she explained she should be called an actor, rather than an actress. 'The dictionary definition of actor is a person who acts, so we do not actually need actress. It is going to sound soon as quaint as doctoress, or poetess, or authoress.'" Warm, entertaining, revealing and surprising, this is a book for fans of Nora Ephron, for those interested in life behind the Hollywood facade, and in how a remarkable woman gained the courage to campaign for women worldwide. Dr. Jill Biden Joins USAID and Ad Council to Debut FWD Campaign for the Crisis in the Horn of Africa". PR Newswire. October 26, 2011.But it seems that period where you were not working as much was fruitful in other ways, because you discovered other interests. One of them was archery, amazingly. Can you describe how you took that up?