Think Gina Gershon, think sexy. Think strong. Think, frankly, gay. Gershon has made her name playing foxy dykes and bisexuals. In Showgirls, she was dancing grande dame Cristal, in a porned-up, insane reworking of All About Eve set in Las Vegas, which the critics hated but homos love. In Bound, she played Corky, arguably the hottest butch ever on film.

Most recently, she turned in a guitar-thrashing, throat-scorching turn as rock chick Jacki, the bi lead singer and guitarist of an all-girl punk band in Prey For Rock & Roll, with a nice line in screeching vocals and duffing up scumbag rapists. There's a great story about Gershon laying out Bob Dylan with one punch in a boxing bout at a New York gym. Dylan told her: ‘That's just what I need; a good woman to kick my butt every now and then'.

On the phone, speaking from New York, her voice is clear, not slurred or guttural as her screen personas often demand. As a result of Prey, based on Cheri Lovedog's autobiographical rock musical, Gershon has jettisoned acting for singing. As part of a distribution deal to show the film in the States, she played a three-month tour with a band, and is releasing a CD.

She's become best mates with dyke singer–songwriter Linda Perry, who ‘has the best voice of any woman I know, but she hates performing. I'm like, “Give me your voice”.’ Joan Jett taught Gershon to thrash the guitar. The guitar legend was ‘very specific about the technique’, apparently, but Gershon won't say more, giggling, ‘It's too naaaaasty’.
The question that faces Jacki, she says, is: ‘What do you do when you haven't made it?’ It’s one that could apply to Gershon herself, as she herself admits.



Growing up in LA (‘I'm the original Valley Girl’), Gershon appeared in musicals and joined a band when she was 15. She adored David Bowie and Elvis Costello. When she was a young girl, she told people she wanted to be a ‘hit-lady’. She says: ‘Maybe it was the Bond movies. My image was of a cat burglar, elegant and secretive. I didn't realise it meant killing people.’

She moved to New York to study acting, philosophy and psychology – the latter two because ‘I like to at least pretend to be smart. Psychology feeds into acting. Philosophy has helped me get through the business side of things. I was an existentialist for a while’. She appeared, though not in much else, in some key films of the 80 – Pretty in Pink, Cocktail (Tom Cruise was ‘very sweet’) – but her career didn't really take off.

‘I didn't quite go the commercial route. My agent told me I was gonna ruin my career doing Showgirls, then Bound, but I can't help what I like. Maybe I was young and naive and didn't think about the repercussions. Maybe they closed doors, but they opened others. At least I can say I do work I’m proud of.’

What, even Showgirls? Paul Verhoeven's film was critically panned but Gershon is proud of her performance. The experience wasn't pretty, she admits. The filming was ‘insane’. Camp classic it might be, but, says
Gershon, ‘It was so not fun to work on. I was dancing ten hours a day, three months straight, before filming started. I anticipated the equivalent of appearing in a classical jazz concert, or something by Wagner, something dark, intricate and psychologically intense. When I got to the set, it was a Britney Spears concert.’

But Gershon trouped on. ‘I thought I'd have fun – and the drag queens would dress like me on Hallowe'en. I was like, “Why are you guys taking it so seriously?”’

Then, the script for Bound landed, the tale of a gangster's moll and a handy-dyke getting it on. ‘It had two things against it. Lesbianism and little-known directors – the Wachowski brothers. Those were big taboos back then. But I loved the script and I wanted to do Corky. She was the typical male hero – get the money, get the girl. It was 180 degrees away from Cristal. All I wanted to do after Showgirls was cut off my hair, take off the nails.’

After Bound, Gershon's career stalled. ‘If I sat around waiting for another acting part, I'd probably go crazy at this point,’ she admits, though she’s had a cameo in the hit Larry David comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm. ‘Music has allowed me the luxury of not totally relying on acting as a means of income. Actually, if I listened to the universe, I probably should have pursued music all along.’

She is working on a children's book with Dan, her brother – The Adventures of Einstein P Fleet – centred on the adventures of an awkward, smart 12-year-old boy, based on Dan, which the big studios are sniffing around. There's a possible film about a ‘famous female figure’ she might make, but she doesn't want to jinx it by talking about it.

Gershon finds it odd that she's remembered for her lesbian and bi characters – ‘I've done over 30 movies’ – especially as she sees the sexuality of those women as ‘incidental. I look at the character and what they're doing and what they're going through. At this point, I can't do another lesbian part because I’d get typecast. It's a shame; a lot of the time they're great!’ Bound opened up the way for Boys Don't Cry and other lesbian-themed movies which followed, she believes.

Her gay fans are ‘fantastic, really loyal. It's nice that I seem to have represented something in those movies that they connect to. They send letters and presents. Sometimes it gets too much. I say, “You gotta relax. Don't throw yourself around like that”.’

Does she guard her privacy? ‘Sure. Why the hell would anyone want to talk about their private life?’ She laughs. ‘I'm open, to a certain degree. I don't want to talk about who I'm going out with. One, I'm superstitious. Also, it's not my job to say what I'm doing.’

Oh come on, your lesbian fans want to know. ‘All my lesbian fans don't want to hear the answer or they'll just be disappointed, so I'd rather not disappoint them,’ she says. ‘It's nice to let people fantasise and dream. So if I said, “I'm not gay”, it's like–' she makes the sound of a groan ‘–so it's better to say nothing, and they'll think, “Maybe she is; she doesn't say anything about it”.’

Gershon's single at the moment, she tells me, though seeing someone. ‘It's not serious, though I'd like to find someone. I'm ready to be in a serious relationship. I want to focus on my work, and it would be nice to have an anchor.’ She'd like children – ‘But I don't want to do it on my own’. She would like to live with someone ‘as long as I have my wing of the house, and they have theirs.’

And just to be absolutely clear: the gender of this person would be male?

‘Well yeah,’ she says very quietly, ‘but I don't want to make anyone sad.’ Then she brightens. ‘Hey, I wish I were gay, I wish I could be gay; I really just don't think I am. I just don't think it's my thing. I'm really not.’
Do women approach her? ‘Yeah, all the time. It's nice, flattering. If anyone likes you, that's nice.’
Has she ever slept with a woman, fancied a woman? ‘Questions like that are no-one's business,’ she says, icily. ‘I just find them really inappropriate.’

The same goes for her age. According to websites, she is 43. ‘Let's say early 40s,’ she says, then continues angrily. ‘Why is everyone so fuckin' obsessed with age? That's the worst thing in this business. If you say anything, say I'm 65. Seriously, I find it really disgusting.

‘It's hurt a lot of people's careers. That's why I'm cagey. Actresses are told they're too old – what do they mean “too old”? Fuck you. I've lied about my age every which way since I started. Why, if you're 50 and look like 32, should you not be right for the part?

‘I feel like my private life is no-one's business; knowing about it doesn't enhance my acting. In fact, once you know too much about the person, you stop looking at their acting or their music. I hate gossip magazines. What they write most of the time is bullshit, anyway. I'd rather people knew me by my work. It would be miserable just to want to get my picture in the paper.

She's taken a brave route, not playing the game. ‘My mother says, “It doesn't matter what I tell you to do, you do what you want to do”. She's right. I connect to something or I don't. But that's not brave. I feel weirdly selfish – “I like this, so I'm gonna do it”.’

But this bull-headedness, while eliciting some ‘Go, girl’ cheers, hasn’t led Gershon, so far, to big-role territory. She’s known to lesbians for Bound, and for Showgirls by connoisseurs of trash. She hasn’t made it — yet. And she knows it.
‘I feel completely frustrated,’ she confesses. ‘I don't feel I’ve got anywhere near fulfilling my ambitions. There have been many times when a director has wanted me, but the studio says they have to go with the better-known actress. After Prey, I considered giving acting up. But I have other avenues of creativity. I don't want to become a bitter actress staring at the phone.

‘I don't think I crave public attention. Maybe that's the problem – I don't have that blind, crazy ambition. I'm probably a reluctant celebrity. If there's a line of photographers, I'll sneak around the back of it. That's not a good celebrity quality. I don't think I have gotten to the level I should be. I'm that one step away. But there's still time.’ She laughs. ‘I'm not dying tomorrow.’

As for her sexy image, she groans. ‘That is so not what I am. I don't walk into a room and think – she purrs slinkily – “Who am I gonna kill?”’

Maybe she should play a dowdy heterosexual librarian in her next film. She roars. ‘Actually, I just played an English frog biologist in a movie with Matthew Modine called Kettle of Fish. My character's super-goofy. She wears a lab coat, mismatched clothes and bad shoes. I loved it.’

It all sounds most unlike the Gina Gershon we know but, hey, at 65 she's earned the right to do it her way.

Prey For Rock & Roll is out now on DVD