Shooting from the hip

Photo: Lorenzo Agius/Exclusive by Getty Images

If the two gore-and-gams movies that make up the Grindhouse double feature have a through line, it’s Rose McGowan. She stars in both films—as an unlucky amputee with a machine-gun leg in Robert Rodriguez’s zombie flick, Planet Terror, and as hippyish Pam (for which she donned an $8,000 wig) in Quentin Tarantino’s slasher homage, Death Proof. Though the characters are wildly different, the casting makes sense—few modern stars so effortlessly conjure B-movie cool. But the real McGowan is, she claims, nothing like the persona. The lady—a.k.a. Marilyn Manson’s ex— bakes (her specialty is red velvet cake). She recently took time out of multitasking around her Hollywood home in unbecoming sleepwear to talk horror, smoked meat and doing double duty in Grindhouse.

How are you this morning, Rose McGowan?

I’m fantastic. Living the dream.

Which is?

Running a bath, feeding my dogs, wearing ratty old pajamas, drinking coffee and making my bed while I’m talking to you.

Glamorous! What do your pajamas look like?

They have pigs with wings that seem to be flying all over some puffy clouds, and they’re so old they have holes all over the knees.

No wonder you’re the dream of fanboys everywhere.

My friend comes over—she’s always wearing really pretty lacy lingerie—and she’s like, “Wow, you’re the prettiest girl with the ugliest pajamas I’ve ever seen.”

This is totally messing with my perception of you. Do you still feel like there’s a discrepancy between your image and who you really are?

[Laughs] Completely. I don’t know what it is. It’s funny to hear about 40 times a day, “You’re so much nicer than I thought you would be.”

So you aren’t goth?

No! I won’t even wear black to premieres, because when you’re pale and have dark hair, you can go from zero to goth really quickly. 

You not only star in Grindhouse but you’re on the soundtrack. When did you realize you could sing?

An ex of mine a long time ago heard me just singing around the house and spurred me on to do stuff, and it morphed from there. I like it. It makes me happier than doing anything else.

Was that ex also a singer?

Maybe. But that ex was so long ago, who really cares? You know?

Okay, fine. So I have to admit I’m having trouble keeping—

The movie straight?

Yes.

What’s confusing is the three titles. Grindhouse is the overall name, and then each movie has its own name. Robert’s is Planet Terror, which has nothing to do with the story; he just thought it was funny and big sounding. Quentin’s is Death Proof, about the car which is death-proof, but only if you’re sitting in a certain seat. I happen to not be sitting in that seat.

Is that a spoiler?

Well, Quentin likes seeing women get roughed up.

How do you feel about that?

He would argue that at the end of the movie the women are triumphant over the bad guys, but if you go back to those movies, women were really given the raw end of the deal. Quentin would have nights where we’d go over and watch stuff from grindhouse cinema, and horrible things were happening to these women; I can’t say I enjoyed it.

Are you squeamish?

I can’t watch horror movies; I get nightmares! But I watch the Discovery Health channel, and I watch those surgery shows. Anything like, “We took out a hundred-pound tumor and had to wheel it out on its own gurney.” I go to bed with autopsy shows on—I find them fascinating—but for some reason I just have a hard time with the fake stuff. The funny thing is that Rodriguez would probably throw up if he ever saw a surgery show.

In his movie you play a character with a machine gun for a leg. Was that tough?

It was an incredibly hard shoot. I did a large part of my stunts. Oftentimes I wouldn’t see how close the fireball was behind my head. I had some eyebrows singed off. I have a china-doll body with a bull’s personality.

Speaking of large personalities, what was working with Quentin like?

I bet you kind of imagine what it’s like, and it probably is that. Everything’s over-the-top and loud and crazy, but down to business, too.

And with Robert?

Very quiet, very intense. The shoots were hard. I got really thin during the first two or three months of filming. It was tons of stress, but also we were filming in Austin and I don’t like smoked meat, and that’s what they have out there. It’s sad, because there are these  pro-anorexia websites, and someone told me they have pictures of me as “thinspiration,” which is repugnant. I hated [being that thin].

So you’ve put the weight back on?

Yeah. Now that I can eat normally again. Well, normally for me—I had a blob of lemon cake and coffee for breakfast.

Wait—back to this machine-gun leg for a second. Do you have to use your hands to shoot it, or do you fire it with your leg?

No, that’s my leg.

How is that supposed to work?

You know, I don’t know. That never occurred to me! [Pause] It’s grindhouse.

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