Rose McGowan may have some of the best legs in Hollywood, but she gave one of them up for Grindhouse. In Robert Rodriguez’s segment, Planet Terror, she plays a dancer who loses her leg in an infected monster attack. First sticking a table leg on the stump, she wobbles around to escape, but by the end she attaches a machine gun and fires away. She’s also in Death Proof. The actress herself is every bit as outrageous as the characters she plays, so if she weren’t already mesmerizing with her china doll skin, her words would grip us completely.

CraveOnline: As an actress, legs are obviously part of what makes you sexy.

Rose McGowan: I would say as a human being, legs are good.

CraveOnline: So what reservations might you have had about doing a whole character where losing the leg is the hook?

Rose McGowan: I really didn’t have any reservations. I thought it was hilarious but because it was completely absurd. I love the absurd. Kind of absurdist comedy, absurd things in life and this was certainly one of them. Robert called me once, he was struck in traffic while he was writing the script, and he said, “I got it. She’s going to have a machine gun leg.” Cool. All right. Fantastic!

CraveOnline: And then it becomes another sexy thing in the movie.

Rose McGowan: It wasn’t sexy to shoot it, because I had a thick heavy great cast, so I can’t say I wandered around going, “Oh yeah, I have a sexy great cast.”

CraveOnline: But when you see it now?

Rose McGowan: It’s really weird, because I completely forget that it’s CGI. It completely looks real to me. It just looks completely natural to me, which I suppose is bizarre in and of itself. I thought it was pulled off wonderfully.

CraveOnline: Are you worried about becoming an icon for amputee fetishes?

Rose McGowan: Well, I know there’s gun fetishes, smoking fetishes, I mean

there’s every kind of fetish in the entire world, I figure. I’m far too lazy. That’s just too much work. But yes, I think we’ll definitely be hitting the amputee and gun fetishes market hard.

CraveOnline: Did you have any logical concerns about how the gun was firing?

Rose McGowan: No. I squeezed an inner thigh muscle and that’s sort of how it went, my friend. Another useless talent.

CraveOnline: How about doing a love scene with one leg?

Rose McGowan: Well, what was very funny about it, it seemed distinctly unsexy when we were doing it, and Robert said, “Don’t worry, I’ll make it super hot.” And I’m like, “Oh, okay.” It was more like, “Okay, just pet her back. Your mouth is open and kiss right here on your shoulder.” Anything that was kind of really outlining my body, there was nobody else there. So it wasn’t like we were together or anything. And I thought, “Oh my god, I’ll actually put my hand over my dad’s eyes when he sees it.” Robert made it super-hot. Wooo.

CraveOnline: Were you wearing the cast through that, because we see the table leg come up.

Rose McGowan: Yeah, that was actually my idea. I thought it would be really funny if my little table leg went up in the air. Got a big laugh. Thought it was quite amusing. So part of it, yes, I was, and part of it they shot above it.

CraveOnline: What were the movies Quentin and Robert showed you to develop your character?

Rose McGowan: Quentin screened a bunch of movies, just for us to see what a Grindhouse was in general. I’m an old movie buff but I kind of stopped around 1962. So those weird ’70s films I hadn’t really seen. He has a screening room so he played them and they’re hilarious and they have missing reels and some of the film burns from nitrate. Say there’s a sex scene in it, that the projectionist in Ohio like will just cut it out and take it home. Next day it goes to Iowa and that would just be gone. All sorts of cool things that happen in this movie. But I thought what was particularly brilliant was that those guys were completely mavericks outside of Hollywood. They’re doing everything that Hollywood doesn’t want to do – kill kids, kill dogs — everything that breaks the sacred rules of moviemaking essentially. And it’s awesome that two guys who are within the system but are such mavericks that they can, both of them I think could direct movies and throw paint at the wall, and if it’s cool, the studio would pay them to make it so within that, their homage is that they’re basically taking these outsiders and making them insiders and making people kind of interested in that stuff. It’s not a homage in the sense that we’re going to set out and make bad and ridiculous movies. An absurdist point of view but not ridiculous. Someone said it best the other day when they said, “I’ve never laughed and dry heaved at the same moment.” I thought that should probably be put on the poster.

CraveOnline: Was it tougher to create an outrageous character like this than a normal role?

Rose McGowan: You know, I’m not really one of those people who goes and writes some big back story and agonizes over characters. I think you kind of can get it. For me personally, it’s just kind of more instinctive. But I don’t have kind of an acting background. I fell into it accidentally. Just kind of did Doom Generation, my first movie, and I kind of went from there. So I just kind of got her, and again when this is played in the long form, there are scenes where Cherry is kind of a loser and crying, and kind of weak in the beginning, and there’s more of that that’s going to be in the longer form. And then she turns and has to rise and stand and save the world. No, it’s great. I apparently don’t reflect on much.

I’ve been asked that. It never occurred to me to think about it. Maybe I should start thinking.

CraveOnline: Were you ever self-conscious about your go-go Dancer clothes for the whole movie?

Rose McGowan: No, I have a different outfit when I’m a go-go dancer. You have to have a skirt of a certain height or shortness to have the thing on your leg, so that was a practical matter. But in these days when like any girl you’re wearing something small, I’d rather just be in a big sweatshirt. You stopped thinking about it, it was so damn hot. It was like 105 degrees in crazy humidity. The bulk of the shoot was like that. And then the go-go dancer’s outfit, I love dancing so I was fine with that, but shooting from all those angles I was like, “Oh, dear god, please don’t be low and wide.”

CraveOnline: Rodriguez has directed a lot of strip teases in movies, Salma Hayek and Jessica Alba before. Was it intimidating to follow in that tradition?

Rose McGowan: No. I grew up dancing. I can dance, so…

CraveOnline: So you’ve done pole dancing?

Rose McGowan: No. I never knew how to dance the pole. That was accidental. I didn’t want to touch the pole. I had them Windex it, but if you think about it, they use Vaseline on it. You know how they tell you not to put Vaseline on a cut because bacteria breeds there? Just think about that. I’m just saying. But you know I’m doing this kind of dance in five-inch heels and doing back bends and all those crazy things, I kind of slipped a little bit. Made it look like it was part of the dance. I mean, there’s so much more of elaborate dancing than there was in the sequence. But I just kind of slipped on it and I wound up just twirling. Hey, it works. So it kind of worked a little bit but it wasn’t my primary focus to go and watch strip clubs. It wasn’t that kind of a thing.

CraveOnline: Did you feel at any point the film was going too far?

Rose McGowan: No. At the end, no. And there was no line when I cracked [the evil soldier] in the eye with my table leg. I just kind of ad libbed on one of them, although there’s not really ad libbing in the movie, “Dance for me, motherf*cker,” and I cracked it off, so that made me happy.

CraveOnline: Would you ever be intimidated by a role or subject matter?

Rose McGowan: Mmmmm. No.

CraveOnline: You’re the only actor in both films. Were they different experiences?

Rose McGowan: Quentin Tarantino is controlled insanity, I would say. He’s very loud and fun. I don’t think there’s anybody on the planet like him that I have ever met. And Robert is very quiet and very focused and I think that’s because, one, he’s shooting it and then he’s editing it in his head and then goes home at night and edits it. So everyone’s very, very quiet and very respectful with all the different things kind of going on. I’ve never actually been on such a quiet set. At first I kind of freaked out, but then you just completely adapt. So then when I switched over to Quentin it took me a lot to start talking between takes.

CraveOnline: Did you ask to be in both?

Rose McGowan: I didn’t ask for that. I specifically asked if I could be blonde. And I just auditioned for Quentin. I auditioned twice. And I auditioned while I was filming Planet Terror. It wasn’t the kind of thing where hey, I really think I should be in this movie. It wasn’t like that at all. It’s more just the typical way of him casting. He saw a ton of actresses, a lot of actresses, New York and LA.

CraveOnline: Was there a longer, more graphic scene in the car where Kurt Russell bashes you up?

Rose McGowan: It was a bit longer. I saw it the first time the other night. It was really neat. My head smashing back and forth. They had me on a hydraulic and it was like a hydraulic air pressurizer thing. And I kept saying, “You could do it more and more,” so my cheek bone was out to there, and I was done in close-up smashing at my face. But I figured if it was a stunt person, all they’re going to see is the back of the head, I’ll look like kind of a nit being thrown around. That won’t be very attractive. I was like, “I can do it!” Then I was like, “I have a concussion.”

CraveOnline: Kurt can be a little method. Did he get into the killer role?

Rose McGowan: No. He was lovely. I don’t think he was being method. He was lovely, but maybe he was being very sweet to me. His character is actually very sweet to me until the very end. And there’s longer drawn out sequences of him being that sweet to me. No, he’s a pro. I don’t think that he’s actually method. He’s a pro. I don’t think he believes in being a dick to anybody, and usually method is an excuse to be a dick.

CraveOnline: Is there any talk of the further adventures of Cherry Darling?

Rose McGowan: I hope so. That would be hilarious.

CraveOnline: Haven’t they signed you?

Rose McGowan: I think we’re getting through this one right now.

CraveOnline: Did working with a guy like Greg Araki in the beginning kind of prime you for this kind of stuff?

Rose McGowan: I would say probably so. I’ve also got kind of the absurdist in me. I love random strange things and I guess you couldn’t get more random or more strange. I think they’re both fantastic films. I’m really proud of them.

CraveOnline: Do you have more of an appetite for Grindhouse movies now?

Rose McGowan: I don’t know. It’s funny, I did a cover for Rolling Stone the other day and it was a kind of crazy lack of outfit, and I thought, “Oh lord, I’m never going to be Jane Austen in a film now.” That’s what I’d really like to do.