Special Issue – Women in Hollywood 1997, By Oliver Jones

Instead of head shots, the photos Rose McGowan brings to her auditions look more like mug shots: black and white, McGowan snarling against a brick wall. McGowan is an actress who goes the distance–albeit down roads that might have many people looking for a detour. Whether she’s having a nasty encounter with a garage door in her latest, Wes Craven’s Scream, or doffing her top more times than she cares to remember in Gregg Araki’s The Doom Generation, “she’s quirky and avant-garde,” says Craven. “But when you look beyond that there’s real substance. That’s what makes her unique.”

In an age when even child actors have smooth, sanitized patter for the press, McGowan is a kick to interview. Ask what’s next on her agenda, and at first she’ll say she hasn’t any idea, then she’ll present a dozen possibilities. A small sampling:

(1) “I would love someday to become a curator at a museum–most of them are run by the geriatric society.”
(2) “Shannon Tweed is getting old, isn’t she? Somebody’s gotta make those Showtime movies.”
(3) “I do see myself living in France, maybe making French movies. The Doom Generation is huge in Europe.”
(4) “Maybe I can get an NEA grant and reenact Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ live onstage. Then I’ll get my grant revoked, and I’ll be on the front page.”
(5) “Showgirls 2? I’m there.”

Alternately playful and pretentious, world-weary and ebullient, McGowan specializes in contradictory, in-your-face revelations. She appreciates a punk-rock approach to sex (“Most people just like to be thrown up against a wall, that’s my theory”) and enjoys the anonymity of living in L.A. (“When people are so obsessed with themselves, they don’t give a rat’s ass what I’m doing”). Yet she’s got a shoe fetish to rival Imelda Marcos’s and a longstanding passion for glamour. “When I was a nine-year-old, I was putting on face cream because I didn’t want wrinkles,” McGowan says. “I mean, I was planning for the future. I did always think that a camera was following me around.” With any luck, it will be.