Rose McGowan: I'm Not Jaded
After five seasons of the hit TV series "Charmed," you might expect Rose McGowan would want to take a break. Well, instead she's doing double duty in the new and very unusual two-part movie "Grindhouse," which was released last week.
Director Robert Rodriguez said he based a lot of the character Cherry (a tough machine gun toting broad) on McGowan, saying recently, "I love a really strong female character. But far and away, one of the stronger females I've met is Rose."
Rodriguez may have been referring to a car accident the 33-year-old was in earlier this year which forced her to get plastic surgery on her face.
She told The Early Show co-host Julie Chen where her inner strength comes from.
"Well, I think, like most people, I had sets of adversity and things like that but I also refuse to be jaded by kind of bad things in life, refused from a very early age," she said. "I just think things are funny. I think it's much easier. Maybe it's just the Irish way to make fun of everything that's bad or sad or tragic. So, everything is just 'Ha, ha, ha,' hiding the pain on the inside. I don't know. I'm not a beige personality, but that's OK. I enjoy myself."
Photos: "Grindhouse" Premiere
McGowan explained why "Grindhouse," a double feature also directed by Quentin Tarantino, is not your typical horror flick.
"I have a really big problem with horror movies in general. I was going through the classics — 'Friday The 13th,' 'Halloween' — I've never seen any of these movies. I don't like them," she said. "But this is, you just try to get in the mindset of these filmmakers, (Quentin) Tarantino and (Robert) Rodriguez, and it's a very comic book approach. Like the 13-year-old boy's splatter-gross out. But the thing in these movies is that you're laughing so hard. I had somebody say they've never laughed and dry heaved in the exact same moment."
In the films, McGowan plays two roles: Cherry, a girl who is down on her luck when flesh-eating zombies take one of her legs, and Pam, a pretty girl who is stalked by a psycho-killer (Kurt Russell).
Making it look like she is missing part of her leg was a challenge, she says.
"That was a really heavy gray cast strapped to my right leg, so it was locking my leg out straight and I rested on my heels on a little ball bearing," she said. "On the other side is a four-inch high boot, so my posture was horrid. And I did everything as fast as everybody else. It's kind of like a bizarre version of the Ginger Rogers — I did everything that Fred Astaire did but backwards and with a gun."
She said it worked her muscles and strengthened her balance. "Balance is not my forte," she said. "But I knew I had it made when somebody on the set said I look like a ballet superhero. I go over this wall at one point and I guess I was doing first position arms. It was like oops, hopefully no one will notice, so I guess it looked good."
In one scene, Tarantino tells McGowan that she looks like Ava Gardner but she says she doesn't get paid that compliment very often in real life.
"It's funny. She's one of my idols, just purely looks. She's stunning and a lot better actress then she was given credit for," she said. "The day that I could actually be told I really look like her, would be a fantastic day because I should take the compliment and shut up. 'Yes, I get told that all the time.' No, I don't."