COOL STARLETS - ROSE McGOWAN
November 2002 Issue of NZ Pavement Magazine
Rose McGowan's profile as a celebrity has often outshone her acting career. But with a starring role on TV3's Charmed and a fresh perspective on life and work, the striking beauty deserves top billing in Pavement's "Cool Starlets" issue.

Luckily for us, Rose McGowan likes photo shoots. After six hours of pampering and preening by a devoted team of eight on the Los Angeles set for Pavement's cover spread, arguably the coolest of all Hollywood's "Next Big Things" still has another three hours to go before the final frame is snapped.

Then, after making the 45-minute drive across town to her recently refurbished home in Hollywood's historic district, there are 10 pages of script to memorize for her second season as Paige on TV3's supernatural drama Charmed. With luck, she'll grab a few hours sleep before a 5am wake-up call and another 12-hour plus day on set.

"I'd pay so much money not to be tired," admits McGowan between camera setups. "I'd give back my pay check. I hate it. It makes me want to cry. I know if I say that though, people are going to think I sound like a whiner."

So why doesn't she shave off those newly dyed red locks and go work in that middle-of-nowhere diner she fantasizes about when the alarm bell rings some mornings? After all, when mega TV producer Aaron Spelling was scouting for a replacement Charmed's real-life bitch witch Shannen Doherty two seasons back, the actress who stole Marilyn Manson's heart and who wore "That Dress“ to the 1998 MTV awards was hardly an odds-on favorite to co-helm a PG-friendly network show.

"Honestly, it was kind of because of that I decided to do it," confesses McGowan, who blew out her 27th candle last month at a Magic Castle party in the foot of the Hollywood hills. "I tend to do anything that strikes me as completely odd and out of character. That's very much part of my nature and always has been."

Of course, banking the first steady pay check of her acting career doesn't hurt either, says McGowan of her decision to join Alyssa Milano and Holly Marie Combs as the missing link in Charmed's Circle of Three. And after the end of her nearly two-year engagement to Manson in early 2001, McGowan also admits she needed to bury herself in work to mend her broken heart.

"That is part of the reason why I decided to do the show," she freely admits. "Our relationship may have appeared to be a bit of a circus but that was just on the outside looking in. The inside stuff was very different. I loved him and he loved me. He was the great love of my life."

Clearly, though, McGowan is still distraught by the split. No sooner had she uttered that last sentence about Manson when her eyes well up with tears. Surprised, and a little shaken by her candid show of emotion, she jumps to her feet to regain some sense of composure.

"Look at me," she exclaims. "I must be overly tired to get like this. I usually put up this wall for that kind of thing and never show that side of me."

McGowan is saved from further discomfort when, at that moment, the photographer pokes his head through the door and tells us he's ready for the next setup. It's no great surprise when a little later, McGowan's publicist politely asks if we can finish the interview off another day.

True to her promise, McGowan calls from her Charmed trailer the next morning and we pick up where we left off on the subject of her notorious ex. Today, however, McGowan is a little more guarded; friendly all the same, but reluctant to elaborate too much further than the press release she issued at the time, which cited "lifestyle differences" as the reason for their split.

"I wanted to put that out there so it would shut down pretty quickly," she says. "It wasn't anything to do with cheating or anything like that. It was just a hard, hard lifestyle on tour and the whole circus of performing. My friends were all amazed it lasted as long as it did."

McGowan says she's had no contact with Manson since the breakup and it's clear from her tone this is a topic she'd rather not pursue. As for her current status, she dated Ahmet Zappa for a while after leaving Manson, then moved onto a non-celebrity, a writer for cartoon shows, whom she split with the week of our interview after almost a year together.

"Being a rock star is definitely a mark against a man with me," says the new single starlet. "I like blondes - go figure - and very smart, funny men."

Manson, and the paparazzi frenzy their relationship created, may be history, but McGowan knows that it's going to be a while yet before she shakes off her "wild child" tag in the supermarket tabloids. McGowan seems both bewildered and surprised by the description, despite her headline-grabbing past. When asked to suggest a couple of more appropriate alternatives to describe her personality, McGowan says "off-kilter" and "good-hearted" would be more accurate.

"I possibly suffer from over-empathy," she explains. "If one person starts crying, I'll cry. If one person has no money, I'll give them mine. If I had a bicycle growing up, I always felt incredibly guilty when saw someone sitting at the bus stop.

"A wild child, I'm definitely not. I'm like a grandma in a young person's body. I always have been. When I was nine, I was worried about incontinence. I used to read medical journals and was convinced I had every single disease that struck old people. I think that's why I feel younger as I've got older; I'm afraid to let go of my age-related illnesses."

Misconceptions abound about McGowan, whose sharp tongue and brash sensuality have made her a source of titillation and discomfort for an industry that still hasn't quite figured out what to do with women who are both un-apologetically smart and sexual.

A combination of ill-informed web fans and the journalists who rely on those so-called facts to punctuate their stories. says McGowan, perpetuate many of those perceptions.

"You'd be amazed at the interviews I've done with high-end magazines and all they've done is gone on fan sites for their information," she sighs. "I feel like saying, 'Do you realize the fact checking you've done is from some little pimple-face, fat geek from Ohio, God bless him, who's getting these cockamamie facts from God knows where?'"

McGowan just laughs at how wildly different her public persona has become to her own sense of reality. She's never really cared what people think of her anyway, and if there was a shred of self-consciousness lingering, living in LA has wiped out the rest.

"There's a lot of freedom here, because everyone is so obsessed about themselves, they don't really give a rat's arse about you."

If McGowan cared enough, she could always set the record straight once and for all by writing her biography. Hell, her Manson moments, while a tabloid editor's wet dream, are only a fraction of what makes her life story a potential bestseller. McGowan smiles as she recalls the first time she was asked to write her biography. She was nine and had just shared tales with a neighbouring plane passenger of her hippie upbringing on an Italian commune run by the Children of God cult - the very same cult in which River and Joaquin Phoenix were raised.

McGowan's Irish father Dan ran the 200-strong chapter on the outskirts of Florence, while his French wife Terri - they split when McGowan was five - raised their six children. (McGowan has two half-sisters on her father's side.)

"I remember looking up at a lot of hairy legs," recalls McGowan. "Actually, I remember very clearly from the age of three. I think that's because that's when I learned how to read. And I wasn't reading Children's books, I was given anything I wanted to read.

"There was this weirdo guy, the overseer of the property, called Fernando. He'd show me old Playboys and feed me stale Kit Kats. He was terrified of water and used to smell really bad, so all the hippies would throw him in the lake once a week."

McGowan has fonder memories of taking naps in a rusty cannon in the corner of a bombed-out 14th century castle and tearing through a neighboring farmer's field with her dad, stealing corn for their dinner. "That part of my childhood was great," she smiles. "It was when I came to the States that things went haywire."

McGowan settled in Eugene, Oregon, on her return, but had many different homes over the following years.

"My parents married and divorced a lot of different people, so us kids just bounced around. Where I'd live would depend on their mood. I'd come home from school and there'd be an airplane ticket to go live with the other one. It was difficult and strange. Some of the places I'd go, I'd be celebrated for being popular or beautiful, reasons that didn't really have anything to do with me. Then I'd go somewhere else and I'd be reviled and people would throw things at me.

"It was horrible, but it did teach me not to believe in what people thought of me," says McGowan, who has stayed tight with her siblings, but today has little to do with her Seattle-based parents. "That helps a lot for what I do now. Things still hurt my feelings. Of course they do. but I just sort of move on."

One stepfather, fearing her to be Goth-obsessed and heading down the wrong path, sent her to live in a Portland drug rehab clinic at 14. However, McGowan ran away after just two months. "I wasn't even doing any drugs at that stage, but I sure learnt a lot about them."

McGowan lived on the Portland streets for the next year, surviving by hanging out in gay clubs all night - "It kept me a virgin for a very long time" - and collecting empty cans on the streets for refunds. When she came in from the cold, she stayed with an aunt who inspired her to sign up for beauty school. McGowan, who also showed an interest in art around the same period, hoped that by becoming a hairdresser she'd make enough money to travel and pay for a college education.

Those plans, and her life, changed forever when she went to visit an acting friend in Los Angeles. While her worked out in a gym one day, McGowan - who refused to go in because she thought it was "so LA" - stood outside with a "grumpy expression" on her face. In true Hollywood fairy tale fashion, that 'look' was spotted by a casting director working for director Gregg Araki, who was still searching for his angry young female lead, Amy Blue, for 1995's The Doom Generation, the story of a trio of aimless, world-weary teens who get their thrills torturing and killing a trail of cashiers and clerks before engaging in kinetic ménage à trois.

"At first, I said no because I always thought actors were kind of cheeseball. Maybe they are. What do I know?" offers McGowan nonchalantly. "Then the script seemed so familiar, aside from the sexual aspects of it. I thought, 'I know this girl'. I call her the iron eggshell. She looks like this hard steel thing but if you press it, it all crumbles and cracks. That's so much like me.

Before The Doom Generation, McGowan had appeared in 1992's "insane comedy" Encino Man as a featured extra through her friendship to the same LA actor who dragged her along to the gym that fateful day. but her one line part was so fleeting, she can't recall anything about the film, other than she didn't earn a cent and today still wishes she could erase it from her résumé.

While The Doom Generation may not have done much for McGowan's bank balance either, her performance garnered critical acclaim, industry kudos and a greater shot at steady work. She followed up with the low budget thriller Kiss and Tell and Lewis and Clark and George, before widening her growing fan base with the 1996 mainstream smash Scream, in which she played a frisky student who has an unfortunate encounter with a garage door.

After starring in the 1997 TV movie Devil in the Flesh, McGowan appeared in two back-to-back movies with fellow rising star Ben Affleck: Going All the Way (1997) and the ski slope thriller Phantoms (1998).

If Hollywood wasn't already starting to take notice, most casting directors had her head shot within easy reach after her lead in 1999 indie Jawbreaker. Her role as the equal parts vamp, tramp and camp Alpha Bitch Courtney Shayne moved one critic to call her "one of the most watchable guilty pleasures of the late '90s".

"I came into this business so backward," says McGowan, "The first thing I did became a cult film. After that, I found myself with no money. A lot of journalists would ask me why I did the films I did. Because it's my lifelong dream? Duh! No, because I had to pay my rent."

McGowan, who didn't make a film this year because she was so exhausted from her first season of Charmed, says she wants to rely more on her instincts for choosing her next big screen role, rather than signing on for a pay check or the chance to work with a favorite actor.

She craves a meaty dramatic part; preferably, a period piece with our own Peter Jackson in the director's chair. McGowan is a huge fan of the Kiwi author. She raves about Heavenly Creatures, and even counts Jackson's not so well-received Hollywood debut The Frighteners as a personal favorite.

"Maybe you could show him a copy of Going All the Way when you get back," she suggests.

McGowan's classical facial features scream Merchant-Ivory lead material. Although petite, the five-foot-five McGowan has curves in all the right places for a period piece, sensual soft brown eyes and the most lily-white skin you could ever hope to find on a Hollywood starlet. Physically, her only drawback for securing roles might be the fact she looks so much younger than her 27 years. "I guess I do have a baby face," concedes McGowan. "It will serve me well in later life but right now it's also kind of frustrating because it looks kind of pervy when you see me cast against a 36-year-old man."

Meanwhile, back on the set of Charmed, a relaxed McGowan is already putting the lessons she learned from last season into practice. She'll never get used to the 5am starts, but she's learning not to cringe too much over the cheesy spells Paige has to say or to complain when she's standing outside at 1am in another skimpy outfit.

"This year, I'm going to relax into it more and have fun," says McGowan, who was so stressed last season she came down with the flu five times. "now, I pretty much do whatever I want. I just use it as a playground more. if it's going to be silly, then I'll just embrace it and go all the way."

McGowan's inherent need for a sense of freedom partly explains her new hair color this season. Working regular hours for the first time on Charmed made her feel stuck in her own private Groundhog Day, and she needed something to help her escape the numbing sense of repetition. However, she admits the novelty of red locks is beginning to wear off and she's already looking for other spontaneous acts to push the walls back on the Warner Brothers studio lot. Boxing, fencing and magic lessons are all on her 'to do' list during breaks from this season.

Despite obvious misgivings about her role on Charmed, McGowan says the pros far outweigh the cons. And best of all, she gets to do the job she loves. She has no idea what she'd be doing now if she hadn't refused to go into that LA gym the day she was discovered. She lives for the feeling she gets from those magical moments on set when she loses herself in the character and completely disappears from herself.

"Acting is better than any drug because you're not there in your shell," she reasons. "It's really hard to explain and define, but that's why I do it - for escapism. It's the ultimate vacation. It's not that I don't enjoy myself, but it's just that you get this great sense of freedom."

One day, however, McGowan is adamant she'll quit making a living from being someone else. Inspired by a story she read about an actress-turned-nun, she doesn't believe she's destined to do the same job her entire life.

Maybe a music career will be her next move. In her time off from Charmed, she's already begun recording her debut album, a collection of what McGowan describes as "old standards" she's taken and "kind of tweaked a little bit". Other than that description, McGowan, whom you get the feeling has already said more then she planned, is staying tight-lipped about her recording career and says we'll just have to wait for her album's release, maybe sometime next year.

Besides, if there's one thing a naturally fearful McGowan is more afraid of than anything, she confesses, it's what life has in store for her in the next few years. "I can handle the idea of being very old, but the middle part, the 30s, 40s and 50s, seems very strange to me," she concludes. "Once I'm 60, I'll be fine. But it's those 30 years in between that trouble me. It's like opening a new chapter of a book, you really don't know what's coming."

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