Actress who boxed with Bob Dylan. Bound Interview with Gina Gershon by Pauline Adamek
The directors talked about consulting the writer Susie Bright to get the lesbian details right. How did she influence you? "She told me a lot of great places to go in San Francisco. I even went alone. I like doing my research alone because then you can really melt into the world. I was really looking for a 'look' and what I discovered was there are so many different subcultures. There are the femmes and the he-shes, the butch dykes so that really opened my eyes. Susie gave me the name of a book called Stone Cold Butch by Leslie Feinberg and it was such a moving story. I watched a lot of Marlon Brando, Clint Eastwood movies to get that kind of feeling of that maleness, those who don't show anything. I started boxing to get that distance and to get muscles. It was really wild because my boxing partner ended up being Bob Dylan!" Did you kick his arse? "I hit him so hard and I thought, 'Oh my god! I just hit Bob Dylan!' and he was, 'Oh, no, it's okay. I need a good woman to do this every now and then.' He's a real boxer. We have the same trainer in LA, who said I needed to get in the ring and spar. I had a really good time. You know in the movie I play the Jew's harp - I added that in - and I was talking to Bob about my Jew's harp and I think he thought I was a musician and he ended up asking me to play with him. He was having a concert the next night and he said, 'Hey, why don't you come up and jam with me?' But I had to shoot the scene in the truck with Jennifer's character all night long and all I wanted to do was get out of there so I could play with Bob Dylan. But I missed my chance. I almost gave up acting that night."