Thelma & Louise star Geena Davis has revealed that she is still trying to deliver more for women through Hollywood films. Three decades after Thelma & Louise revved up the film industry and audiences, star Geena Davis tells Vogue’s Jessica Montague why she is still trying to deliver much more for women through movies. Geena Davis is the first to admit the impact Thelma & Louise had on her career. As the film celebrates its 30th anniversary this month, the actor happily recalls how it revolutionized the road-trip genre, established a new standard for feminist cinema, and set her on a new career path.
“Thelma & Louise changed my life tremendously. I went as far as I could go in trying to get cast. I made it my life’s mission, and thank god it worked out!” says Davis over Zoom from Los Angeles. “I think it was such a great script and characters rather than: ‘Oh man, I know this movie is going to strike a nerve and be a cultural signpost.’ None of us working on the movie had any idea it would get the reaction it did.”
Three decades on, the story of two best friends who became outlaws and chose to take their own lives spectacularly rather than be caught is considered a classic. Next week, Davis, now 65, will appear alongside co-star Susan Sarandon at a sold-out film screening at the famous The Greek Theatre in LA to mark the milestone. Davis was known for quirky roles in films like Beetlejuice and The Accidental Tourist (for which she won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar) before being cast as Thelma, the unhappy housewife turned fugitive. The 1991 film, directed by Ridley Scott, proved a critical turning point.
“It brought home for me very powerfully how few opportunities we give women to feel inspired coming out of a movie,” she says. “From then on, I decided: ‘Well, I’m going to think about what choices I make.’”
She continues: “We were the worst role models for the stuff we did [in the film], but we were still inspiring because we were in charge of our destiny. We made our own decisions, for good and bad. I think that is important for women to see – female characters in control of their lives and making their own decisions.”
Davis went on to helm several major Hollywood releases of the 1990s, including as an all-star female baseballer in A League of Their Own, a knife-wielding heroine in the spy action thriller The Long Kiss Goodnight, and even the first female President of the United States in the TV series Commander in Chief. But Thelma & Louise and its message of female empowerment also influenced her recent work setting up the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media (GDIGM) in 2004.
