By Brandon Wilson
Daily Bruin Contributor
You might call it Gershon’s Giggle Theory, or perhaps the
Giggling Gina Principle, but by any name at all, actress Gina
Gershon has a nearly foolproof barometer to which all her
prospective directors must be subjected.
The actress might not be starring in directors Larry and Andy
Wachowski’s "Bound" if they hadn’t passed her test.
"Within five minutes I knew these guys were good directors. If I
start giggling and can’t stop when I meet someone, I know they’re a
good director," confesses Gershon. "When I met Robert Altman I had
to stop myself from laughing; with Paul Verhoeven I had the same
reaction. The first time I met John Sayles I really had to bite my
tongue. It’s a really terrible thing I’m getting better at hiding.
But if I get giggly, I know that person is talented."
It’s a good thing Gershon got her giggling out of the way early
on in her partnership with the Wachowski’s, because her role in
"Bound," the brothers’ directorial debut, doesn’t call for much
laughter. She plays Corky, an ex-con who is fresh out of jail after
doing a nickel for armed robbery and determined to go straight …
professionally speaking, that is.
As for her personal life, Corky is a lesbian, and she meets a
quintessential femme fatale in the person of Violet (played by
Jennifer Tilly), a gangster’s moll. The moment Violet cruises Corky
in an elevator (or vice versa), Corky’s plans to live the quiet
life are abruptly over.
With "Bound," the Wachowskis (who penned last year’s
"Assassins") take the classic Jim Cain brand of noir (in which an
amoral drifter and frustrated wife spell trouble for the wife’s
wealthy husband) and throw convention to the wind by giving the
drifter part to a woman who loves other women.
"We thought we’d write a really hard-boiled script for women
where they get to play the fun roles only men usually get to play
and we’d have women lining up around the block for it," says one
Wachowski. "And that was not the case. I guess they’d get to the
sex scene and the script would go flying out the window."
In what would’ve been a bold bit of casting against type,
Jennifer Tilly was originally approached to play the tough Corky,
not the femme fatale Violet. But when Gershon came into the
picture, the brothers realized they might have found the woman for
the part.
"I always wanted to play Corky, but at one point the brothers
said ‘you know what, you should play Violet,’ and I said, ‘I just
came from playing a femme fatale in "Showgirls."’ Violet is a great
character so part of me was like, ‘all right, I’ll do this even if
it is another femme fatale.’ The thing I liked about Corky was that
she was 180 degrees from what I had just played, but at one point I
thought I’d play Violet; but then all of a sudden they said ‘you
know if you play Violet we can’t find a Corky that will work with
you, so maybe you should go back to Corky again.’ And ultimately I
then stuck with Corky and that was it. I would’ve done the film in
any case," says Gershon.
The work only started there. Now Gershon had the double duty of
playing a conventionally male part without just imitating a man, as
well as successfully portray a member of a community she knew
little about.
"It’s such a challenge to play the traditional male role in a
film. The most challenging part of it was the stillness, finding
that type of character who doesn’t show anything; like the type of
guys that would always drive me crazy were the ones that showed me
nothing and I would project everything onto them. And I wanted
Corky to be like that."
As for attaining authenticity for other facets of Corky, Gershon
took different avenues to find her character.
"I went to the (lesbian) bars and had fun, but ultimately it was
just sort of an atmosphere that was interesting to be around. I
boxed a lot to get a territorial sense; I watched guys like Clint
Eastwood and Marlon Brando since Corky has a lot of male energy,"
says the actor. "I also spoke to a woman who’d just gotten out of
jail for five years on armed robbery charges. She helped probably
the most; she told me what it was like being in prison for five
years. Just talking to her I understood a lot. The thing that kept
coming up was how she said if you leave them alone, they leave you
alone; and to me if Corky could be invisible she would be. Corky is
tough and she’s there, but there was also a lot of ‘don’t bother me
and I won’t bother you.’"
Finally meeting Tilly also proved to be pivotal to her
performance. And to her relief, she found the recent Best
Supporting Actress Oscar nominee easy and enjoyable to work
with.
"So much of it is about looking at another girl in a sexual way,
the way I’m not used to looking at women, but Jennifer I could
watch forever; when she started talking, I thought ‘she’s going to
make my job so much easier.’ She’s so animated and fun, we really
had a great time together. All of us got along pretty great," says
Gershon.
Born in Los Angeles and raised in Woodland Hills, Gershon’s
acting career started early on.
"I think I’ve always wanted to be an actress since I was little;
I’d make up stories about this whole Spanish village I used to play
with. When I saw some friends of mine on stage in the 7th grade, I
thought ‘Oh my God, why are they doing that? I should be doing
that.’ It was a real gut reaction  it looked like so much fun
 and I knew that was what I wanted to do, so I started doing
plays in 8th grade," she says.
Eventually she wound up at NYU where she studied acting with
several esteemed teachers. After many stage productions, Gershon
landed her first high-profile part as a nasty rich girl sidekick to
Kate Vernon in "Pretty in Pink" ten years ago. From there she went
on to parts in several films including John Sayles’s "City of Hope"
and Robert Altman’s "The Player." In between she helped found a
non-profit theater company called "Naked Angels." Members of the
company include Rob Morrow, Fisher Stevens, Jason Alexander,
Matthew Broderick, and Lili Taylor.
"It’s in New York, and it all started out as a bunch of us
actors not getting hired at other theaters," says Gershon. "So we
decided ‘forget them, we’ll start our own theater company.’"
But of course, Gershon’s breakthrough role came in Paul
Verhoeven’s exploitation epic "Showgirls." It will surely go down
as one of Gershon’s most impressive achievements that the actor
managed to emerge from a film widely reviled without letting it end
her career; in fact, she received what few positive words the film
did receive. So, how did she do it?
"I still haven’t come up with a good answer, and I get asked
this all the time," she says. "It’s interesting to me when people
come up in an almost apologetic way and confess that they liked the
movie, and I say ‘Good! I like the movie too!’"
Next up, Gershon can be seen flexing her comic muscles in Paul
Schrader’s adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s "Touch" and is next off
to the Czech Republic to star in Roger Simon’s romance "Prague
Duet."
In the meantime, Gershon is already learning to adjust to her
newfound status as a lesbian icon/sex symbol with her turn in
"Bound."
"I went to the OutFest in San Francisco, and now I know what
Elvis Presley must’ve felt like, because I had screaming women all
around me every time I flexed a muscle on screen. They’d come up to
me afterwards and ask me what I wanted for breakfast. I’ve never
experienced that before; it was kinda fun."