Gina Gershon - A Sit Down With London Beautiful Life

londonbeautifullife
6 days ago
7 min read

We sat down with Hollywood royalty Gina Gershon in the City of London at Be At One Monument to talk about her new memoir, AlphaPussy: How I Survived the Valley and Learned to Love My Boobs.

We found out from Gina what her thoughts are on London, how AlphaPussy started and spoke about iconic roles such as Showgirls and Bound.

Gina Gershon (@ginagershon) shot by Jay Firth (@itsjustjayjay3)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnH74ImXHc0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnH74ImXHc0&t=28s

We and our guest presenter Rachel Rose starts the discussion with Gina with her trip down from the States to the UK, where Gina tells us that she "loves London" and wants "to move down full time". Gina divulge to us that London "resets" everything for her and how she finds London "beautiful" and that she has "a spring in my step".

Gina goes on to tell us that AlphaPussy isn't an autobiography but a memoir with "specific stories".

Gina explains how growing up in the Valley at.a particular time in her life wasn't easy. Gina's father was a rock to her and how the advice he gave her installed good values into her life.

You can watch the full interview over on London Beautiful Life YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnH74ImXHc0&t=28s

Gina Gershon (@ginagershon) and Guest Presenter Rachel Rose (@rachelphoenixrose) shot by Jay Firth (@itsjustjayjay3)

Gina Gershon offers cautionary (and often hilarious) tales of surviving the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood, revealing how she learned to become an AlphaPussy.

“Gina G is a national treasure, a rare kind of legend who’s more than an actress and storyteller; she’s a rock and roll goddess, proof that grit, glamour, and guts are still stitched into the fabric of fame. Opening up about her times with Prince and wild days in the deep Valley, for fans and friends alike, it’s a ride as electric as she is.” — Miley Cyrus

“Just like Gina—this book is fucking wild, soulful, hilarious, and somehow looks

you directly in the eye and tells it like it is. LET THE GERSHONAISSANCE BEGIN!”

— Aubrey Plaza

FROM A WAYWARD CALIFORNIA GIRL growing up in the heart of the pornborn San Fernando

Valley, Gina Gershon found herself on a journey that has been anything but traditional. Along the way, she had to learn how to spot the toxic types—in both her personal life and her career—and figure out how to dodge, outsmart, or hustle her way through shady characters and sketchy situations, all the while fighting to protect her autonomy as a woman and as an actress.

AlphaPussy is a collection of true stories about experience, resilience, and the messy art of figuring it out as you go. They include sometimes strange encounters with such personalities as Paul Verhoeven, Tom Cruise, Sharon Stone, Prince, Bob Dylan, Sylvester Stallone, David Mamet, Bob Fosse, and so many others. Often hilarious, usually cautionary, and almost always wrapped in absurdity, Gershon’s tales examine the bad decisions, awkward moments, and cringe-worthy interactions that somehow gave rise to survival skills.

Gina Gershon (@ginagershon) and Guest Presenter Rachel Rose (@rachelphoenixrose)

In a world full of bullies, predators, and people trying to tell her who she was, or who she should be, it was crucial for Gershon to become an AlphaPussy: a woman who navigates through this perilous jungle of a world with personal agency and responsibility.

GINA GERSHON has been starring on stage, screen, and television for over forty years. She has recorded albums and toured across America, and performed at Carnegie Hall three times, playing her Jew’s harp with Sting, Laurie Anderson, Joan Baez, and Gogol Bordello. Gershon is the author of In Search of Cleo: How I Found My Pussy and Lost My Mind, which she also performed as a one-woman show with an accompanying album; and coauthor (with her brother Dann) of the young adult novel Camp Creepy Time. In 2019 she performed another one-woman show, Wild Women Don’t Get the Blues, at the Café Carlyle. Gershon’s many film credits include Bound, Showgirls, The Insider, Face/Off, and The Player.

Her television credits include The Assassin, Elsbeth, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Riverdale, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Her Broadway credits include Sam Mendes’s Cabaret, the Tony Award–winning Boeing-Boeing, and more. She lives in New York City.

“AlphaPussy is neither a memoir nor a guide to self-betterment, but elements of both feed into Gershon’s stories. Each wittily titled chapter plunges readers into Gershon’s freewheeling 1970s childhood, defiant adolescence, burgeoning performance career, and collaborations with some of the biggest names in film (including Sharon Stone, Paul Verhoeven and Tom Cruise) . . . This is not a titillating tell-all, and all the better for it . . . In AlphaPussy, Gershon’s real-life stories deal with ‘themes of manipulation, survival, and moving around and being able to stand on your own two feet.’” —Los Angeles Times

“Her new book . . . is a memoir-in-stories drawn from Gershon’s decades navigating Hollywood, the San Fernando Valley, and the minefield of being a woman with strong opinions in an industry full of people who’d prefer she didn’t. It is frank, funny, and occasionally alarming, and serves as an unin-tentional self-help manual informed by the personal philosophy Gershon developed by dealing with her cats. She spoke with PW about honing her survival instincts and why she wants everyone, regard-less of gender, to take on the mantle of alphapussy.” —Publishers Weekly

“Few actors are as versatile as Gina Gershon. From her early role alongside Tom Cruise for her first onscreen love scene in Cocktail, to being directed by Robert Altman in The Player, to back-to-back performances in queer favorites Showgirls and Bound and on to 21st-century standouts Prey for Rock n Roll and Killer Joe, Gershon has established herself as a go-to actor. She has also added writer to her resume with a few books, including her latest, the collection of true stories.” —Bay Area Reporter

“Magnetic and self-assured, Gina Gershon made a name for herself in Hollywood as a risk-taker, often taking on queer roles in cult classics like Bound and Showgirls. Needless to say, her willingness to step into the bold and unconventional meant that she often found herself in some pretty surreal or sticky situations. After forty years in the industry, the Los Angeles native compiled dozens of them in her new book AlphaPussy, a chronicle of coming-of-age blunders and cringe-worthy celebrity encounters that only made her stronger . . . AlphaPussy, in fact, leaves the reader with a potent feeling of empowerment and autonomy.”—Interview

“We were there to celebrate the release of her memoir, AlphaPussy: How I Survived the Valley and

Learned to Love My Boobs, her second book using the word ‘pussy’ in the title. ‘It’s never sexual!’ she clarified. The concept of the ‘AlphaPussy’ first came to her after her performance as Cristal Connors, the reigning bisexual doyenne of the Vegas dance revue in Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls. After receiving harsh reviews from critics and the public, she saw herself as a mother cat, needing to reestablish her dominance. . . Each chapter in the book features a short, punchy vignette describing a situation in which Gina learned to stand her ground. Many are funny, some are sentimental.” —New York Magazine

“In Gershon’s outstanding collection of anecdotes and reflections from her wild and unconventional life, fans will learn a great deal about the actress . . . All of Gershon’s hyperactive craziness is on full display in this showy memoir from an underappreciated actress who may not have an Oscar, but who has played Carnegie Hall three times. Gina Gershon’s ascent toward becoming a true ‘alphapussy’ is a wild ride.” —Bay Area Reporter

“Gina Gershon is the coolest woman on the planet, and AlphaPussy is the coolest, most fun, hottest, most punk book of the year.” —James Frey, author of Next to Heaven

PREFACE FROM ALPHAPUSSY

BOOBS CHANGED MY LIFE

Being a tomboy in my youth, I was always playing sports with the guys—baseball, football, dodgeball, you name it. But when my little buds started to blossom, I was terrified that my relationship with the bros would change.

How right I was.

I grew up in the San Fernando Valley in the 1970s—right smack in the middle of the explosion of

porn. Our local family theater turned into a triple-X adult movie house around the same time my blossoms turned into bona fide boobs. This book tells stories of how I survived the Valley with a C cup, and how I later survived Hollywood, autonomy intact.

I’ve certainly had an unusual career. It hasn’t been very commercial, and it’s hardly been conventional, but I’ve been fortunate enough to experiment and play with different art forms—acting, singing, touring with a band, writing, directing, and producing. In doing so, I’ve had to constantly fight for what I was passionate about. There were parts that I had to leave my agents over because they thought they would 10 v Gina Gershon “ruin my career,” roles I had to turn down because I thought they would sully my soul, and humans I had to navigate and deter in order to protect myself both mentally and physically.

Maybe I’m a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none (although I would argue that I’m a damn fine

Jew’s harp player). I may not have an Oscar, but how many actors can say they’ve played Carnegie Hall (three times so far, but who’s counting)? I’m super grateful for my wild and unconventional life.

I now find myself being the older person on the set telling stories and cautionary tales to my fellow actresses. As I’ve shared my experiences—navigating shark-infested waters as a teenage girl in the Valley, avoiding dangerous situations as a student living in New York City, beginning my professional career as an actress, dodging sleazy bullets in Hollywood—I’ve started to see a through line, a constant maneuvering and manipulating that has stitched together the seemingly random stories of my career.

These tales are about more than just being an actress—they’re about being a female in the world,

and about how I became an AlphaPussy in order to forge my life and career in a world full of bullies, predators, and assholes.

—Gina Gershon