“I learned very early”: The demeaning audition Kathleen Turner sabotaged herself out of
Kathleen Turner might be known for her blunt sense of humour and powerful presence onscreen, but she learned early that she had to be just as feisty off-screen to protect herself in the world of Hollywood.
The business we call show isn’t an easy one to navigate, especially for women coming to the career in the 1970s and ’80s, so it took thick skin and plenty of confidence to get anywhere without being taken advantage of, and thankfully, Miss Turner knew she had to stand up for herself from the beginning.
“I learned very early that I had to have script approval,” she told The Irish Times, “They couldn’t make changes without consulting me”. By very early, you might assume this meant after a bad encounter, a few roles into her career, but for Turner, it was her first time in LA that made sure she never went without script approval again.
Discussing her first screen test there, she explained, “The script they gave me in New York was not the script they gave me in LA”, where she found out the part she was testing for was a “women’s mud wrestling film” for which she was to wear a bikini and get sprayed in oil, and it’s safe to say the Romancing the Stone star was not up for mud wrestling on the first audition.
As she’d already agreed to the showcase, however, she knew there was only one thing for it, self-sabotage, and luckily, Turner is known for her razor-sharp wit, so it didn’t take long for her to figure a way out. “I went to the bathroom, got a roll of toilet paper, slapped it on my shoulder and hip, and wrote Miss Missouri across it,” she told the newspaper, apparently cackling with glee.
The audition didn’t go ahead, and from then on, Turner knew she’d have to continue standing her ground, which she famously did. When she hated the script for Jewel of the Nile, the sequel to Romancing the Stone, she tried to get out of it, despite being legally contracted to appear in the film. Even when they levelled a lawsuit at her, she didn’t back down.
According to Michael Douglas, she was “very concerned” when she saw the first draft of the script, and so, he finally stepped in to rework it with her input. She also stood up for herself when director Ken Russell asked her to do a nude scene in the erotic thriller, Crimes of Passion, and while Turner is by no means a prude, given her status as a sex symbol for most of her career, she knows what she is and isn’t comfortable with and makes no two-step about making it known.
While this has meant she’s managed to avoid some sticky situations and conflicts, it has given her a reputation. “Being decisive, knowing what I want, is too much of a male characteristic,” she said, “So therefore I must be difficult”. It’s ridiculous that a woman simply stating her boundaries in the film industry is enough to have her labelled difficult, but sadly, it’s still the reality for most actors.
Speaking about an interview she did 35 years ago, Turner even agreed that women today face much the same as she did back then, “Everything I said in that, about equal pay, protecting women’s rights and health, I am still saying today”. It’s a somewhat bleak outlook, but, if anything, it means we all need to be a little bit more like Miss Turner.
