Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Rose Rivets

There's a terrific set of interviews with the Grindhouse cast and crew over at Cinematical this morning, but me being me what most grabbed my attention was the interview with Rose McGowan. Specifically where she talks about her next project, Black Oasis - the biopic of Wasp Woman Susan Cabot that I mentioned here - and it's all so great I'm just cuttin'n'pastin:

Cinematical: So what's up next for you?

Rose McGowan: I'm going to do a movie called Black Oasis, which is very ironic, strange, it's this B-movie actress called Susan Cabot. She was Wasp Woman, in these Roger Corman movies, which Quentin's seen every single one of. It's written and going to be directed by the guy who did Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Stephan Elliot.

C: Black Oasis is the Susan Cabot story? Did she end up an alcoholic or something?

RM: Susan Cabot story. She ended up being killed by her son, with nunchucks. An ignominious death for sure. I get to be in drag, because she dies in her early 50s, but she starts going crazier and crazier, just piling on the make-up. Then she starts getting kind of crazier, and she goes into time and thinks she's Wasp Woman and all these other things, so I'll be acting in all these other movies. It's fantastical.

C: Where did this story originate from?

RM: I think just her life story, probably an article. I don't know where the actual source material...

C: Is it going to be serious? Weird? Both?

RM: Probably both, I guess. I mean, it sounds very serious. It's quite tragic actually, this poor little thing."

C: When do you start shooting?

RM: I hope to start in the next three or four months. It's really great. The woman who is producing it, Hilary Shor, she just did Children of Men. So we're hoping to start. She was about 4'10, Susan Cabot, so I'm not sure how .. I'm not super-tall, but that's certainly a lot smaller. She would wear 8' platforms, like going around with these high heels everywhere. Just such a sad life. She was sure she'd be an A-list actress if she was only taller. She was obsessed with that fact. She was engaged to King Hussein, then he found out her real name was Harriet Shapiro, she was Jewish, so he broke up with her. She got pregnant, and all her hopes and dreams pinned on the boy. She had a boy, and she was like 'he's going to be tall, and da da da, and .. . he was born with dwarfism. So then she put him through all these experimental treatments, shots and hormones, trying to make him taller. He got to be like 5'2, but it was really just a bizarre relationship with them. She had all the Wasp Woman and other props, like in her house. The house was like, crazy. And he became obsessed with Bruce Lee, hence the nunchucks. It was his way of getting masculine, because he never looked masculine. Because of all the hormones, he looked kind of feminine.
I seriously couldn't be more jazzed over this project. But how did I not already know this was Cabot's life story? This is something I should've known. This is so up my alley.
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2 comments:

Reel Fanatic said...

I could watch Rose McGowan in just about anything, but especially this one .. sounds like it should just be perfectly disturbing

Glenn Dunks said...

Yeah, that story sounds fucked up. But primo cinematic fodder. Glad to see Elliot back into the fold. And, really, Rose McGowen is the most perfect casting ever.