During one of the more perverse sections of Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror, one half of his double feature with Quentin Tarantino in the new release Grindhouse, a would-be rapist, played by Tarantino himself, remarks to Rose McGowan that she bears an uncanny resemblance to Ava Gardner, which is dead-on. Armed with an old-school beauty thought by many to have vanished with nightclubs moodily lit with the smoke of unfiltered Chesterfields, Rose McGowan is a throw-back with a decidedly modern bent. Dig: Tarantino follows up his comment by pointing out that if he shot her in the face, Rosie would no longer represent Ava. Rosie responds by turning everyone’s favorite pop culture filmmaker into a Cyclops and later gets a machine gun thrust upon her as a prosthetic leg. Therein lies the dichotomy of one of generation’s most interesting, and unique performers: the old-school chanteuse is loaded for bear, and she’s not afraid to let both barrels fly.

Rose McGowan started life offbeat. Born in Florence, Italy, the second of six children to an Irish father and French mother, she spent her early years in the Children of God commune, located in the country’s more rustic region. After her parents’ divorce, returning to the States, Rose experienced major culture shock and alienation, always the “different” kid in the class that the other students singled out. At 15, Rose has had enough and was legally emancipated from her parents. From there, it’s a Hollywood fairytale worthy of another old-school rebel, Lana Turner: while standing outside an L.A. gym, Rose’s unique beauty was noticed by a passing agent. In 1995, Rose was cast in Gregg Araki’s debut feature, The Doom Generation, a controversial sensation at that year’s Sundance film festival. She hasn’t stopped working since, appearing in more than twenty-five features, and five years of TV hit series Charmed, as well as essaying Ann-Margaret opposite Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ Elvis in the eponymous 2005 MOW.

Rose McGowan steps up to the plate in a big way in Grindhouse (she even sings a tune on the soundtrack), playing a role in each of the double-bill’s B-movie features, mostly notably in Planet Terror as the baddest lady warrior since Sarah Connor did a pull-up. Rose sat down with Venice recently in a local diner to talk about doing double duty for R.R. and Q.T., as well as honoring us with her rendition of some old standards (and trust us, the girl’s got some pipes!). Read on…

Venice: So Rose McGowan, tell us about Grindhouse.
Rose McGowan: [laughs] Well, it’s a double feature, from two of the most amazing creative minds around. It’s kind of like two super powers aligning, I think. They give a tip of the hat to the movies they love. What’s really cook about it, is that these guys are both such mavericks, but they’ve been able to work inside the studio system, and the tip of the hat is to those who couldn’t work inside the system. That’s why those exploitation films of the ’70s were able to do the craziest things: they were completely unfettered by rules. They were also restricted by very low budgets, so they had to get creative. It’s interesting that it took two maverick insiders, if you will, to pay homage to the ultimate maverick outsiders.

Since you’re in both films, tell is about R.R. vs. Q.T.
Robert is very quiet and focused on the sets. He edits his films as well, so he’s kind of editing in his head as he goes. His crew has pretty much worked with him forever, so they don’t really talk. They have this great shorthand. Quentin is Quentin. I don’t think there was anyone like him 500 years before, and there won’t be anyone like him 500 years from now. I would say his process is more like con trolled insanity. Quentin is more specific in terms of the cadence of his dialogue with actors. But I get his cadence, because it’s the way he speaks. He’s got a very specific rhythm he likes to use, which is what’s so good about this dialogue. I wasn’t over-directed by either of them, but they’re both very specific.

You got to work with one of my heroes: Kurt Russell.
Good egg. Damn good egg. What’s cool about these movies is that they’ve been truncated for their U.S. release, but internationally and on DVD, Kurt and I have a lot more scenes together. I got to spend quite a bit of time with him. He’s just a really cool man: no ego, no b.s., not pretentious in any way. I think there’s something about people like Kurt, even though he’s a star, he’s much more of a working actor in terms of his persona. He’s never had a real job. He’s been acting from day one. His father (Bing Russell), was a character actor, so grew up on those sets, and that’s all he’s ever known. And his father and all those guys he hung out with on those western sets back in the day, they were men, and so is Kurt. He’s not the guy who spends his off hours getting manicures. [laughs] He’s also very funny. I’m pretty sure he’s a Republican, so he’d tease me horribly, and I’d tease him back. I had long blond hair in the movie, and I’d say to him, ‘Think of this, Kurt: you’re hurting your daughter, Kate. We have the same hairdo!’ [laughs] “Oh, that’s terrible!” But he’s a real good egg. If I had to choose someone to sit next to for four months, Kurt Russell would be a good choice again.

Tarantino has called Death Proof his “slasher film”.
Yeah, but like all of Quentin’s movies, it’s much more than that. I’m not crazy about “slasher films” per se. (Spoiler alert) Kurt’s character gets his comeuppance in the end, and in many of these films, the killer doesn’t, so that he can keep on killing in sequels. But I’m really not crazy about some of these films that are just about new, inventive way to butcher people, especially women. That’s not entertaining to me. It’s really easy to see through the ones that are being made just to cash in on people who are becoming more and more desensitized. It’s just really ugly and crass. Death Proof is violent and shocking, but it’s also humorous.

One thing I’ve always loved about Quentin’s work is the moral ambiguity of his characters, and it’s the same thing with Death Proof. Unlike women in tradition “slasher films”, the women in this are also not necessarily sympathetic, they’re downright nasty at times. It’s a real litmus test for the audience as to where they stand.
In the scenes that you haven’t seen me in, I’m actually pretty likeable. But, yeah, that’s true about Quentin’s work, and it’s certainly true here. And that is what makes it interesting and not just a standard genre movie. Also, Kurt’s character is way more likeable than any of the girls. Honestly, of you watch that movie, and you ask yourself who would be more fun to hang out with at that bar, most people would probably pick Kurt. In terms of moral ambiguity also, there are some times where the bad guy not only doesn’t have to die, but shouldn’t die. For example, Tom Cruise’s character in Collateral didn’t have to die in the end. I think they should’ve gotten onto separate trains, passing each other. I don’t like movies where the bad guy always has to die.

But that’s part of what makes Kurt’s character so dangerous: he’s very charming.
Right, so we both would’ve taken a ride home with Kurt after hanging out with him.

I think so, yeah.
And we’d both be dead!

Dead as Julius Caesar.
See you’re on the other side my friend! [laughs]

Robert said that Quentin showed you guys a grindhouse double bill before you began shooting.
Yeah, I don’t remember the titles as much as images. But one of the trailers was called The Mistress of Philander Manor, one of those cheese British horror movies from the ’70s. Only the Brits would have a title like that. There are certain words that make me laugh, “philandering” is one of them, so it was perfect. So absurd. And Edgar Wright’s trailer in the film is an homage to those films.

Was it a fun shoot?
It looks like it was fun, which is the good news, but it was really hard work. I was on Robert’s for about five or six months. I was also shooting the series here in L.A. during the day and going back and forth between here and Texas. I was having a tough time. I started the movie at 104 pounds, and went down to 98 ½. I was not enjoying that, but the final result was great.

You have a fascinating background. You spent your early years in the Children of God commune, which is the same group Phoenix family (River, Joaquin) were with, right?
Yeah, but they were in a different country. It was really quite idyllic. I find it interesting that I don’t have memories of anything Biblical. I just remember doing crossword puzzles all the time. I don’t remember answering a single Bible question ever.

What was the tenant of the group?
Well, that was part of the problem: it was ever-changing. Very patriarchal. Women were tenth class citizens. Men were allowed to do anything, all in the name of Jesus. I’d say “in the name of Jesus” would be the best way to describe their philosophy, because I could never really see a clear one.

You’ve just described most western religions.
Yeah, and also most people twist it for their own good. Obviously Osama Bin Laden is a heinous man who should be strung up, drawn, and quartered slowly, but tell me the difference when he goes on TV and says, “God is on our side” about the war, and then Bush goes on TV and says, “God is on our side.” What’s the difference?

I think people are finally catching on that the way the Bush administration has responded to 9/11 is completely off-base.
Yeah, not to mention the false sense of security they try to give us. Every new rule is in response to the last stupid thing that happened. I have to take off my shoes because of a shoe bomber. Think they’re going to try that again? I doubt it. I have to put my lotion into a miniature bottle? It’s all post-response. It’s never security measures they’ve thought up themselves. The good news is, I’ve got some duct tape and Saran Wrap at home, so I guess I’m safe.

Did you always know you were an artist?
No, and I had no intention of becoming an actor initially. I just booked [Doom Generation] randomly when I was visiting L.A. No, my memories of any self-awareness are always being aware that I could speak different languages and read all these books, but had absolutely no facility for math, which I supposed should have pegged me early on as being an artist. [laughs] It would literally make me cry. The only one of us that is good at math is my sister, Ava, who is literally a rocket scientist. I asked my sister what the last math she had to do was. She said “differentials”. Do you know what differentials are?

Um… numbers that are different?
[laughs] So we’re in the same boat. I had no way to wrap my little, peanut noggin around it.

How did your emancipation from your parents come about?
Well, things just weren’t that fun, and I thought I could make them better elsewhere. I think I was living with my dad at that point. I bounced back and forth yearly with them, so it’s hard to remember. If you’re living on your own, you can’t get a bank account, or anything legally for that matter, so I had to fix that. I remember the judge being very impressed with me, especially since I didn’t have a lawyer. I represented myself which, looking back was not a great idea, because it usually means you’re guilty! [laughs]

Where did you go after the emancipation?
I kind of just wandered, staying with friends. Those were my traveling years. I think I came to L.A. when I was about 21.

You started with a bang in Gregg Araki’s Doom Generation, which I remember seeing in Sundance in ’95. No one had ever seen anything like it. It was Nicholas Ray on acid.
That was an amazing film. You know what struck me very odd and funny about that film: so many of the things that seemed insane and off-center, like when you go into a mini-mart and it has that crazy light, is that’s the way America looked to me when I moved here from Italy as a child. Everything was hyper-colored, freaky-looking…

Hyper-consumerism, like in Zabriskie Point.
Exactly! Complete hyper-consumerism. I went from living in 17th century in old stone castles, to coming to the U.S. and experiencing that. If I had to explain to someone what it was like to have a massive culture shock, Doom Generation would be it. It’s funny, when I first got the script, I read it like a novel, because I’d been such a voracious reader as a kid, it was my form of escapism. It would drive my mom crazy: one day I’d be a princess, one day I’d be a cowboy… So acting was one of those things in my life where I said, ‘I have no clue how to do this, so I can really suck hard or attempt not to.’ I veered toward “attempt not to”, and it was my acting boot camp. It was a tough shoot for many reasons, especially because my boyfriend had just died.

Was it cathartic doing the film?
No, difficult, but not cathartic. It took my attention away from sadness at night, which is when we shot – just like Grindhouse.

I understand you sing a couple songs on the Grindhouse soundtrack.
Yeah, I sing “You Belong to Me”, and then I have kind of a sing-songy thing over the last sequence. [Robert] wanted me not to sing it like Patsy Cline, but more sultry. (starts singing) See the pyramids along the Nile/Send me photographs of tropic isles…

You sound like a chanteuse from yonder days. Are you a Julie London fan?
I love Julie London! You know who I really like: LaVern Baker, who was this amazing singer from the ’50s. That’s my kind of music.

Why don’t you cut a CD? That genre is kind of a dying style. You could help resurrect it.
Maybe I should. I’d love to be on a Blue Note, or a really cool jazz label. I brought this up a while ago, but was told, “You shouldn’t do covers of songs written by other people, because they won’t make you any money.” But the truth is, it wouldn’t be about the money, and there aren’t too many people capable of writing those songs anymore. You had to have a certain lack of cynicism to write some of those lyrics. Plus, there was a real command of the language that those people had then, and a lot of their lyrics are quite brilliant. I don’t see any top 10 songs today with the word “plebian” in it, which is a damn shame.

Your next project is about ill-fated B-movie starlet Susan Cabot. Tell us about that.
It’s very funny, actually. Stephan Elliot, who co-wrote and directed the film, did Pricilla, Queen of the Desert, and he’s really brilliant. One of the things that he shows is that as Susan got more and more disconnected from reality, she starts thinking she’s actually living in these crazy B-movies she did. She clearly had an ignominious death – I mean who gets killed by their diminutive son with a pair of nun chucks?! She had so much sadness in her life. I think King Hussein really loved her, but then he found out her real name was Harriet Shapiro – she was Jewish, so that romance was over. She kind of let everybody think that her son was his kid, and illegitimate child, which he wasn’t. She was also very self-conscious about her height. She was about four-foot-ten, and was convinced that she would have a very tall son, and kept obsessing on this, how tall her son would be, and it wasn’t the case. He was about five-foot-two. There are so many facets to it, I wouldn’t even call it an American tragedy. It’s a Roger Corman tragedy! [laughs]