Let’s be clear about something: This Geena Davis interview with The Daily Beast is a great read for reasons that have nothing to do with the fact that Sir Ridley Scott would personally mist Brad Pitt’s abs with Evian water between takes of the love scenes in Thelma & Louise. Davis talks about the work of the Geena Davis Institute On Gender In Media at length. She addresses the importance of The Scully Effect (the impact that The X-Files had in inspiring women to work in a STEM field) and the ways in which media perpetuates toxic masculinity. She also talks about A League Of Their Own and The Long Kiss Goodnight and her audition for Saturday Night Live in the 1980s. It’s good stuff! She’s Geena Davis! You should read it!
But you’re not here because of Davis’s nuanced thoughts about diversity in Hollywood or the film festival she co-founded. You’re here because Sir Ridley Scott himself misted Brad Pitt’s rippling torso with Evian water between takes of the love scenes in Thelma & Louise.
Bless.
I also read a story about how Ridley wanted to use a stunt double for the sex scenes with Brad and you were like, “Nope! I got this.”
Oh! You know, I vaguely remember that happening! A funny thing that happened while we were shooting those scenes also was before we shot, Ridley would personally spray Evian on Brad’s washboard stomach. I was like, “Hi! I’m in this scene too. Does anyone want to make me look sexy?” [Laughs] It was just really funny. He’s the artist. He wants his vision to come across, and that included Brad having a great stomach.
It sounds like Sir Ridley was very attuned to the female gaze.
Exactly!
Davis also address the part she played in Pitt’s casting, which seems to have come down to stating the obvious:
I read with about five guys for Ridley and the casting director, and they came in one-by-one, and I thought each one was great. But the last one was Brad and you could just imagine having seen him on screen that he’s insanely charismatic. There was just something magnetic about him. So at the end I said, “Do you want me to weigh in at all about what I think?” And they said, “Sure.” And I said, “The blond one, don’t you think?!”
Were you to list all of Geena Davis’ many accomplishments in order of impressiveness and importance, this wouldn’t crack the top 10 exactly. All the same, “The blond one, don’t you think?!” is definitely on there somewhere.
17 Comments
wouldn’t Evian dilute the testosterone and pheromones he naturally exudes?
Maybe that was necessary, given their potency.
He dilutes them himself, because he is also very polite. It’s not proper to go full Brad at a lady .
“The Scully Effect (the impact that The X-Files had in inspiring women to work in a STEM field)“Anyone else always think that meant standing on a box so you can look the same height as your much taller scene partner?
Evian, of course, looks better on camera than tap water.
And, of course, cows are just painted horses.
Ditto zebras.
They could have just taped a bunch of cats together to make a Brad Pitt
Evian actually sells a facial mist spray which sounds absurd (but is actually incredibly refreshing after a long hike or, presumably, shooting a sex scene with Geena Davis).
Oh yeah, I recall it came in an aerosol can. I would see the ladies on the train using it when I was doing the backpacking thing in Europe.
“Does it have to be an old mill?”
Pretty sure Scott wasn’t the only one who misted seeing Brad Pitt shirtless.:::::::::::::::::: Swings invisible golf club ::::::::::::::::::::::::
This whole article makes no sense. Everyone knows that women don’t really have a libido. The scene would have worked just as well if played by Wallace Shawn.
I dunno man, I’m sure they got ladyboners in their ladycocks.
(checks diagram from the fifties)
Yep. Pretty sure that’s what’s in this covered area.
But the last one was Brad and you could just imagine having seen him on screen that he’s insanely charismatic.As someone for whom Pitt’s scenes helped to clarify quite a bit for me as an adolescent boy growing up in a conservative midwestern family, I can confirm that his tight, glistening charisma was something that really caught one’s attention.