Susan Sarandon says that she changed the ending of Thelma & Louise while filming
Sarandon felt she and Geena Davis "earned that moment together," and director Ridley Scott approved
Aux News Susan Sarandon
There are only a handful of actors who have multiple films in their portfolio that made a major mark on culture as a whole. Susan Sarandon is one of the elite few, with a robust catalog that includes everything from a cult classic like The Rocky Horror Picture Show to the major moment in cinematic history that is Thelma & Louise.
As it turns out, Sarandon played a role in shaping the film, and not just on screen. Discussing her career for Vanity Fair, she recalls, “I initially got involved with Thelma & Louise because [director] Ridley Scott asked me to, and kind of said ‘Which part would you like to play,’ and I had a lot of questions because I told him, ‘I don’t want to do a revenge film, I don’t think that’s what it’s about,’ and so I changed a few things in terms of the way it was played.”
One change she made? The iconic ending. “[Scott] said, ‘Well, you definitely will die, but I’m not sure about the other character. Uh, you may push her out of the car.’ By the time we got to that, the very end of shooting, the one take that we had, we had earned that moment to be together,” Sarandon explains. “And that’s when I said to Ridley, ‘I want to cut a lot of this dialogue, and by that time we’re finishing each other’s sentences, and I wanna kiss her,’ and he said, ‘Great.’”
So we have Sarandon to thank for making movie history as Thelma and Louise sail off the cliff together. But she gives Scott plenty of credit for turning a “tiny little film” into an “iconic, bigger than life story” by placing the outlaw women into “John Wayne’s backdrop.” She adds, “[The] joke was while we were filming that we would find out that we were just a voiceover, and it was all these great shots of everything. Because that’s what we would be doing every morning, every sunset, we would be shooting exteriors with Ridley, with his guys all bare-chested with their shirts on their heads and smoking cigars. And Geena [Davis] and I were like, ‘I’m sure we’re not even gonna be in this movie.’” Thankfully, it all worked out for the best.
19 Comments
And 25 years later, she thought women hadn’t earned the right to choose their own reproductive health because she didn’t give a fuck about the Supreme Court.
You are a dumb ass.
Liberals love blaming susan sarandon and bernie sanders for everything, you’re doing the gop’s job for them. Thanks for supporting the rise of fascism while us leftists are busy fighting.
Good fighting. Really good work. 6-3 Supreme Court decided my daughters have to carry their rapists’ babies. So, what the fuck did you do to stop that from happening? I voted for the woman who would have. You supported the old white man and the barren Hollywood cunt who didn’t care.
What is that device she’s holding? How do I send text messages with it?
I think it’s one of those things that captures your soul, so I’m not sure why she’s using it voluntarily. Putting it there before driving her body off a cliff?
That actually sounds like a neat movie.
It’s like a horcrux, I guess.
It poops out a picture instantly, you then find a pen, write a little message on the bottom white part, seal it in an envelope, address it, put a stamp on it, take it to the post office (or a post office sanctioned mail box), drop it in the mail. Presto, within 3 days, the person your sending the text to will have in their hot little hands. Well, back in the olden times it was usually within 3 days, with the current post master, could be anywhere from 3 to 10 days, if it gets there at all.
That must take like forever. How did people get anything done back then?
It’s called a blender. It sends fax machines.
Betamax or VHS?
Minidisc.
“John Wayne’s backdrop.”
“Does it smell funny in here?”
Ewwwww…
And then later she said that a Hillary Presidency would be the end of the world, and that Trump was the best choice possible.
“Ridley told me that he thought Louise should have a beard. I disagreed, and the rest is history.”
Doesn’t J.D. (the thief she had a one-nighter with) count as one? I mean, obviously she was more into Thelma than into him.
Susan Sarandon changed the ending…Not according to Becky Aikman’s essential Off The Cliff: Making Thelma & Louise; or Mimi Polk, T&L film editor. The “gonzo ending,” while not in the original shooting script, was always Callie Khouri’s Hollywood-ending compromise. Albeit given Sarandon’s (appropriate, in-character) posturing throughout the location shoot (i.e. directing Ridley, Gena Davis pining to pantomime her swagger) it’s no surprise she recalls it that way.