Role: Cherry (Planet Terror) / Pam (Death Proof)
Previous Roles: Charmed, The Black Dahlia, Jawbreaker
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In Planet Terror Rose McGowan portrays Cherry, a gogo-dancer who is too good at what she does, meaning she should think about doing something else, and think, she does. But that's the problem with goals: they become the thing you talk about, instead of the things you do. After one final tearful tease, Cherry ditches her dead-end job to chase her dream of a life beyond the four seedy walls of Skip's go-go bar. Her travels lead her to a backwoods barbecue and a chance encounter with a lost love, Wray. And that's just the beginning of her journey. First wounded, then equipped, and finally empowered, one night will change Cherry forever.
Rose McGowan has a smaller role in Death Proof as Pam, an angelic looking, blonde haired sassy "little hippie chick". She's been stoop up and ticked off, and she needs a ride home.
• As with the real grindhouse films, the directors intentionally added 'missing reels' in their movies.
• Both directors 'aged' the films, adding scratches, dirt, and dust, to simulate the feel of the real grindhouse films.
• Quentin Tarantino was a big fan of Charmed and used to call McGowan with questions about the show.
• Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino both wanted Rose in their films.
• Rose did a lot of her own stunts.
"Cherry is certainly the character closest to my heart I've ever played and probably in some ways closest to me. I'm not saying I'm a loser per se, but Cherry gets this gold carrot yanked away. It's not even a gold carrot, it's just a regular one. She keeps thinking something is going to happen in her life, yet nothing does."
"More than anything it was the way Cherry related to my own life—not to sound like a victim, but the way you think everything's working out great, and then something comes and knocks you on your ass. Robert and I have talked about how he has fantastic luck, so we call him Four-Leaf; whereas I generally have not great luck, so I call myself Two-Leaf. And Cherry's pretty goddamn two-leaf, too, at times going down to negative-one-leaf. I also completely related to her struggles and eventually coming out on top. And the role gave me the opportunity to be funny, to cry, and to save the world—that's usually three different movies."
"The problems with that leg were manifold. I would have to run up a hill as fast as anyone else, while on my regular leg I had on a 4-inch high-heel boot and on the other a heavy gray cast with LED lights all over it [for CGI compositing later in post-production]. They made it lighter as the movie went on."
"I'm really proud of what I had to do for this movie, not just acting-wise but physically, too. I've got a body here to sip tea and wear a petticoat, and instead I'm doing a lot of... pliable! I do pliable things with my body."
"If there are amputee fetishists out there, I think this movie's for them."
"Cherry and Pam were extremely different. You and I had talked about Pam being blonde; I felt that because her face gets hurt just a little bit, I wanted her to look really soft and angelic. Whereas I wanted Cherry to have more of an exotic feel, with pale skin, black hair, and red lips. It's kind of like working from the outside in: They both needed to have really strong, separate identities; making Pam look soft was key to the character. The roles were equally fantastic in completely different ways, and obviously it’s anybody's dream to do two things like that back-to-back—it was like having two different amazing meals."
"My character Cherry starts out as this girl whose life is a bit on the skids and all the sudden I kinda have to save the universe." (shrugs) "You know how that goes."
"The whole experience was completely schizophrenic, but in the best way."
"In Death Proof I play a girl named Pam, and I actually had to lobby real hard to get that part. I went through the audition process while working with Robert, and went on to read several times. When I got that part, I pushed to make Pam blonde, and Quentin met with me on that one. Pam has a very iconic death scene, if I do say so myself."
On Cherry
"More than anything it was the way she related to my own life—not to sound like a victim, but the way you think everything’s working out great, and then something comes and knocks you on your ass. Robert and I have talked about how he has fantastic luck, so we call him Four-Leaf; whereas I generally have not great luck, so I call myself Two-Leaf. And Cherry’s pretty goddamn two-leaf, too, at times going down to negative-one-leaf. I also completely related to her struggles and eventually coming out on top. And the role gave me the opportunity to be funny, to cry, and to save the world—that’s usually three different movies."
On Cherry's One Leg
"Robert actually helped me a lot with the walk, and I tried to watch people with one-and-a-half legs around town, but I just felt too cruel staring at them—I’d always turn away at the last minute."
On Cherry & Pam
"They were extremely different. Quentin and I had talked about Pam being blonde; I felt that because her face gets hurt just a little bit, I wanted her to look really soft and angelic. Whereas I wanted Cherry to have more of an exotic feel, with pale skin, black hair, and red lips. It’s kind of like working from the outside in: They both needed to have really strong, separate identities; making Pam look soft was key to the character. The roles were equally fantastic in completely different ways, and obviously it’s anybody’s dream to do two things like that back-to-back—it was like having two different amazing meals."
On Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino
"The difference between them and other directors is they're fucking cool, hello!"
On Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino
"They're about the coolest people you could ever hope to work for."
On Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino
"Oh yeah, I did call them the 'double fucks' because they were annoying me, they were picking on me." (laughs) [when Rose was doing a crying scene]
On Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino
"Robert pushes me hard and I hope I deliver. Quentin will as well I'm sure... Don't kick my ass too hard." (laughs)
Robert Rodriguez on Rose McGowan
"Rose McGowan, no one else could play Cherry. She has to be within the action, she has to be sexy, and romantic, and... I had written some music, the main Grindhouse theme, which you hear in the trailer. 'Rose, can you dance?' 'Yeah', 'Well, I want you to dance during the opening credits. Now you're a dancer.'"
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