Rose McGowan was a working Hollywood actress by the age of 19. In this clip from her 2019 London Real interview, she tells Brian Rose what that world was really like: a place run on rules that were never written down, but that everyone knew and passed on.
It’s a short clip, but it gives a clear picture of the culture she later spoke out against, and an uncomfortable point about who keeps that culture in place.
▶ Watch the full episode: Rose McGowan – Be Brave
Rules nobody wrote down
Brian asks what Hollywood is like for a teenager. McGowan says she made a film, went away for a while, came back for another, and by 19 she was “really in it.” What she found was a set of unspoken rules that everyone seemed to understand.
The people who passed them on to her, she says, were often women: the female agents who were a big part of her early career. One rule she remembers clearly was that she had to grow her hair long. The reasoning, as she tells it, was blunt: the men who made the casting decisions needed to find her sexually appealing, or they wouldn’t hire her. The agents, she adds, put it in far more aggressive terms.
She went along with it. She assumed they knew best, and having been homeless as a teenager, she didn’t want to go back to that. So she grew her hair out.
A life lived undercover
That decision, McGowan says, started a split between the person she was inside and the image she was presenting. She describes it as being like “deep undercover work” as a famous woman. She always knew acting wasn’t going to be the big thing in her life. Brian sums it up: she was a person playing someone whose job was playing parts. She agrees.
Not just men
Brian moves on to what she calls the patriarchy in Los Angeles, and notes that her book argues it isn’t kept in place only by men. McGowan agrees strongly. It isn’t a case of half the population ruling over the other half, she says. Women actively support a power structure that doesn’t support them, which she describes as the definition of a cult.
She compares the studio system to something almost biblical: an old man on a throne handing down commands. You must do this magazine cover, or the studio will be unhappy with you. In her view, “the studio” works like a god’s voice, and that is chilling.
The Directors Guild figure
To make the point concrete, she cites a statistic from her book: around 96% of the Directors Guild of America are men, a figure she says hadn’t changed since 1946. The result is a narrow, mostly white male view of the world on screen. “There’s nothing wrong with white men,” she says, but audiences shouldn’t only get their viewpoint.
What to take from it
McGowan’s story is about one industry, but the pattern applies more widely. Unwritten rules are powerful precisely because nobody has to defend them, and they are often enforced by the people they hurt. Her answer, in her book and in this interview, is to question those rules out loud.
Who is Rose McGowan?
Rose McGowan is an American actress, director, author and activist, born in Florence, Italy, in 1973. She is known for films such as Scream and the TV series Charmed. In 2017 she went public with allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein, which helped spark the #MeToo movement, and her 2018 memoir Brave describes her journey from childhood to Hollywood and beyond.
In her full London Real episode, recorded in 2019, she talks with Brian Rose about her childhood, Hollywood, speaking out and reclaiming her life. You can also watch her London Real Success Secrets: Rose McGowan – Success Secrets.
See everything Rose McGowan has done with London Real on her guest page: Rose McGowan on London Real.
More on London Real
Transcript
Transcript: Rose McGowan – The Hidden Rules Of Hollywood
0:00 Brian Rose: What is Hollywood like when you’re a teenager? What is that whole experience like? It’s maybe different now.
0:05 Rose McGowan: I don’t know. I did that, then I went away for a bit, then I went back and did another movie, and by 19 you could say I was really in it.
0:19 Brian Rose: What was Hollywood like?
0:20 Rose McGowan: It was filled with all of these rules that were never written down anywhere, but everyone knew the rules and everyone passed these rules on. Female agents were big in my life, and they definitely had a hand in telling me the rules I had to abide by. Such as: you have to have long hair, so the men in Hollywood will want to have sex with you, and if they don’t want to have sex with you, they’re not going to cast you. They said it in more aggressive terms.
0:51 Rose McGowan: And I guess I figured they knew, and I didn’t want to be homeless again. So I grew out my hair, and that kind of led to the start of this external life. It was like my internal and my external self were so wildly divergent, but stuck together. It was almost like doing deep undercover work as a famous woman. It was really weird. I don’t know how to describe it exactly, but I always knew it wasn’t going to be the big deal in my life.
1:26 Brian Rose: So you’re always playing a part, as a person who plays parts.
1:29 Rose McGowan: Yes, exactly.
1:30 Brian Rose: You get really deep into what you’ve called a patriarchy in LA. Could you talk a little more about that? You talk about it in the book, and you have a great statistic about the Directors Guild. But it’s not just men who keep this in place.
1:46 Rose McGowan: No, it’s women too. If the patriarchy takes all of us, it’s not like there’s 49% of the population, men, ruling everything, and we’re just here. No. Women actively support this power structure, and they actively support a power structure that doesn’t support them. Which is, by definition, a cult.
2:15 Rose McGowan: And Hollywood is almost biblical. It goes back to the wizened old man on his throne, and these edicts are handed down: you have to do this or the studio will be really unhappy with you. You have to do this magazine cover wearing nothing but an ammo belt, or the studio will be really unhappy with you. That’s like the god voice talking to you. You can really substitute one for the other, and I think it’s rather chilling.
2:49 Brian Rose: And something like 96% of the Directors Guild are men?
2:52 Rose McGowan: Yes, 96% of the DGA, the Directors Guild of America, are men, and that statistic hasn’t changed since 1946. So it’s a really narrow view, and it’s primarily white male, and that just doesn’t reflect what I see on the streets. There’s nothing wrong with white men, but we don’t only want to have their viewpoint.
