Frequently Asked Questions About This Location
Qus: 1).what is the mode of payment accepted ?
Ans: Cash , Credit Card and Wallets
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Qus: 4).What does the local business do?
Ans: FUN FACTS:
Susan Sarandon is born on a Friday - according to the children's nursery rhyme she is loving and giving.
Susan Sarandon has a Maltese/Pomeranian dog named Penny Lane, who appeared with Susan in the films 'Bernard and Doris', 'The Middle of Nowhere', 'Arbitrage' and television talkshows like 'Late Night with jimmy Falon', 'Wendy Williams Show' and 'Good Morning America'.
Susan Sarandon has a second puppy named Rigby Sue who is like a sister to Penny Lane. Rigby is a Poodle/Maltese cross.
Susan Sarandon's shoe size is 7.5 (Source: SizeMatch.com)
Susan Sarandon stands 5'7" tall (1.7m)
Susan Sarandon's bra size is 37-C (Source: strangecosmos.com)
Susan Sarandon's figure (breast/waist/hip) 37C-26-36 (Source: Celebrity Sleuth)
BIOGRAPHY:
As well known for her political activism as for her varied screen roles, Susan Sarandon has defied stereotyping in both her career and her personal life. The mature actress's face bespeaks strength and integrity while the fierce intelligence in her large, luminous, hazel eyes remains undimmed, her unique combination of brains, beauty, tenacity and conscience making her more in demand past the age of 50 than ever before. The former Ford model, often the very embodiment of the seductive older woman, has demonstrated considerable range and fearlessness in accepting her acting challenges, excelling equally as devoted mother and working-class heroine, not to mention renouncing glamour altogether for her Academy Award-winning role as Sister Helen Prejean in companion Tim Robbins' "Dead Man Walking" (1995). Sarandon may yet prove friend and author Gore Vidal a prophet: "If pictures were made with interesting women as protagonists, she would have the same rank and commercial appeal as Bette Davis enjoyed for decades."
After debuting as the ill-fated hippie daughter in "Joe" (1970) and adding to her resume with "Lovin' Molly" and Billy Wilder's ill-advised remake of "The Front Page" (both 1974) and the female lead opposite Robert Redford in George Roy Hill's "The Great Waldo Pepper" (1975), Sarandon attracted widespread attention in the cult hit "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" (also 1975). As one half of the "straight" couple who find themselves stranded among Transylvanian weirdoes, she spoofed all the ingenues she had played, revealing "the bitch" beneath the sweet exterior. Released the same year that then-husband Chris Sarandon earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his portrayal of a pre-operative transsexual in "Dog Day Afternoon", it opened the door for more off-beat, controversy-sparking parts like the brothel-bound mother of a 12-year-old prostitute (Brooke Shields in Louis Malle's "Pretty Baby" (1978) and the lesbian lover of vampire Catherine Deneuve in Tony Scott's "The Hunger" (1983). In between, she earned her first Best Actress Oscar nomination for Malle's "Atlantic City" (1980), the now famous scene in which she bathed her breasts in lemon leaving an indelible mark of sex on her.
Making her TV debut in the ABC daytime drama "A World Apart" (1970-71), Sarandon went on to appear in a great number of TV-movies and miniseries, including "June Moon" (PBS, 1974), "Who Am I This Time?" (PBS, 1982), based on a story by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., the ancient Roman miniseries "A.D." (NBC, 1985) and "Women of Valor" (CBS, 1986), playing a hostage Army nurse). She has lent her intelligent and distinctive voice and presence to a number of documentaries, narrating or appearing in "Your Water, Your Life" (PBS, 1988), "Postpartum: Beyond the Blues" (Lifetime, 1989), "Living in America" (VH-1, 1991, about censorship), "From Fury to Forgiveness" (The Discovery Channel, 1994, about crime victims), "One Woman, One Vote" (PBS, 1995, about the suffragette movement) and "Secrets of the Humpback Whale" (The Discovery Channel, 1998). On the lighter side, she played Bitsy in "Sesame Street's All-Star 25th Birthday: Stars and Street Forever!" (ABC, 1995) and provided the voice of the Ballet Teacher for a 1995 episode of "The Simpsons" (Fox). She also starred as a woman taken hostage in a bank robbery in the 1999 HBO movie "Earthly Possessions", based on the novel by Anne Tyler. For her 2001 guest appearance as a soap opera diva in an episode of the NBC sitcom "Friends", Sarandon garnered an Emmy nomination.
Originally offered the meatier role that Cher would play in "The Witches of Eastwick" (1987), Sarandon acceded to a smaller role, suffering betrayal at every turn, then rebounded from the humiliating experience with a career-reviving turn in "Bull Durham" (the 1988 comedy which introduced her to Robbins), a part which required an amazing amount of verbiage plus good legs. Although she had to grovel for the role, it firmly established her star power and earned her the tag as the "thinking man's sex symbol," as well as some very nifty paydays for flicks like "Sweet Hearts Dance" (1988), "The January Man" and "A Dry White Season" (both 1989) and "White Palace" (1990), which again exploited her sexy older woman allure without heating up the box office. Disappointed by the Academy's failure to recognise her work in "Bull Durham", she finally earned her second Oscar nomination for Ridley Scott's feminist outlaw movie "Thelma & Louise" (1991), winning over a whole new generation of fans as the level-headed Louise opposite Geena Davis' more volatile Thelma.
Sarandon appeared in the drama "Light Sleeper" and contributed cameos to Robert Altman's "The Player" and Robbins' directing debut, "Bob Roberts" (both starring her significant other), before striking gold again in "Lorenzo's Oil" (all 1992). Her complex performance as a mother whose unqualified devotion to her stricken son turns her into a largely unsympathetic, self-righteous matriarch brought her another Academy Award nomination. Joel Schumacher afforded her substantial creative input in "The Client" (1994), a slick legal thriller adapted from the John Grisham bestseller. Though she sparred with Tommy Lee Jones, Sarandon's true leading man was talented youngster Brad Renfro as the endangered titular character whom she serves and protects as his flawed, inexperienced, yet sharp lawyer. For fleshing out the thinly drawn Reggie Love, Sarandon received a fourth Oscar nomination as Best Actress the same year she essayed the mother of large broods in both "Safe Passage" and "Little Women" (both 1994).
Portraying real-life anti-death penalty crusader Sister Helen Prejean in "Dead Man Walking", Sarandon wore no makeup and sported a bad haircut as the Louisiana nun who acts as spiritual counselor to death row killer Sean Penn, trying to redeem his soul while reconciling his needs with the heinousness of the crime and the grief of the murdered children's parents. Audiences and critics alike responded enthusiastically to her strong performance, and the Best Actress statuette was finally hers to take home. After providing the voice of the seductive Polish sider in the animated "James and the Giant Peach" (1996), she jumped at the chance to don sexy clothes and makeup for Robert Benton's "Twilight" (1998), excited to play a character that was bad and mysterious. Sarandon sacrificed glamour for grit, allowing Julia Roberts to "out-glow" her as she wore the frumpy caftans and makeup of the terminally ill in Chris Columbus' "Stepmom" (1998). She then starred in Wayne Wang's "Anywhere But Here" (1999) as yet another mother coping with a new love and a rebellious teen before teaming again with Robbins for "The Cradle Will Rock" (also 1999).
The new millennium saw her undertake a diversity of roles. She lent her screen persona to the painter Alice Neel in "Joe Gould's Secret" (2000) and provided the vocals for a pair of animated features, "Rugrats in Paris - The Movie" (2000) and "Cats & Dogs" (2001). Teaming with Goldie Hawn, Sarandon played a former rock groupie in "The Banger Sisters" (2002). She then went on to play the title character's mother in "Igby Goes Down" (2002) and starred with Dustin Hoffman as one half of a married couple who take in their deceased daughter's fiance in "Moonlight Mile" (2002)
In a Hollywood where most actresses her age are making visits to plastic surgeons, Sarandon has aged gracefully, her "lived-in" persona much more appealing than the blankness of her younger years, though she can still fit into the remarkable ("It looked like it was painted on") red-and-white striped dress that helped her capture the role in "Bull Durham". Guided by her social principles, she rejects characters that are heroes going in for ordinary people who become extraordinary when their moment comes. In that vein, she rose to the occasion and seized her moment at the 1993 Academy Awards, delighting some and infuriating others when she took 28 seconds to speak on behalf of Haitian refugees with AIDS. Not interested in fame for its own sake, she uses her celebrity to promote a wide variety of progressive causes saying, "I see how my life and the lives of my kids are connected to the outside world. How can you not participate in the world you live in?"
Birth Name: Susan Abigail Tomalin (kept her married name, Sarandon, as her stage name)
Birth Date: 4 October 1946
Birthplace : Born in Jackson Heights, Queens and raised in Metuchen, New Jersey, New York
Family
Father: Phillip Leslie Tomalin
Mother: Lenora Marie Tomalin
Siblings:
Susan is the eldest of nine children
Brother: Terry Tomalin (writer/journalist)
Daughter: Eva Amurri Martino
Born March 15, 1985;
father, Franco Amurri;
made screen debut in small role in "Dead Man Walking" (1995); played opposite her mother in "The Banger Sisters" (2002).
Eva is married to sport journalist/reporter/broadcaster Kyle Martino.
Son: Jack Henry Robbins
Born May 1989;
father is Tim Robbins;
godfather is Ron Shelton
Son: Miles Guthrie Robbins
Born May 5 1992;
father is Tim Robbins;
godfathers are Gore Vidal and Robert Altman
SUSAN SAYS:
Susan on acting:
“I fell into acting. My ex-husband, Chris, was an actor and I was the wifey, but I started doing some modelling and his agent sent me on an audition for a film called Joe. I got the part and it ended up being a breakthrough movie. The next thing I got was a soap, then another film – I thought it was a riot. It was a number of years before I thought, “I guess I’m an actor.” - Woman and Home magazine, July 2008
Susan on her role in Enchanted:
“I was honoured to play an iconic Disney figure in Enchanted. I love that the princess is plucky and saves the prince. I love my character, Queen Narissa. It’s so much fun to be evil. She has no compassion – she’s completely over the top and imbalanced – it’s fabulous!”- Woman and Home magazine, July 2008
Susan on her new film:
“I am also excited about my next film, The Lovely Bones [released in March 2009]. I love the book and it’s my first time playing a grandmother. She’s a great life force in the story, a completely insensible alcoholic with a great sense of humor. It was fun and, of course, so interesting to work with Peter Jackson.”- Woman and Home magazine, July 2008
Susan on beauty:
“I haven’t had any work done to my face. I’d be lying if I said losing my jaw line was a pleasant thing and I am not ruling out eventually doing something. But I do think the plastic surgery thing can get addictive and extreme. I think looking good and being sexy is a state of mind. It’s about saying “yes” to life. There are lots of women my age and older who are living very vital lives. By the time my daughter is 60 and looks fabulous, it’ll be great if no one is making a fuss about it. How fantastic when it’s accepted that you can look good at any age.”- Woman and Home magazine, July 2008
Susan on men:
“There’s nothing that turns me on more than a smart guy with a sense of humor and a little bit of a twinkle in his eye. I like men who cry and who listen, and who have a strong feminine side. I also like a man who can take care of things for me. I don’t care what age a man is, if he’s older or younger – it doesn’t matter to me. I like someone who can dance and laugh, and has a sense of adventure and who’s good at what he does. Passionate.”- Woman and Home magazine, July 2008
About attracting negative press at the 1992 Academy Awards ceremony when she spoke out about the plight of HIV-positive Haitian refugees incarcerated by the US government at Guantanamo Bay: "Those people were so desperate that they were on a hunger strike. Most of them were very ill and they were choosing to die rather than live under the conditions that Amnesty International had already said were completely inhuman. Nothing was being done. It was my tax money keeping them there, so if it meant going on the air at a widely-publicized event and for 26 seconds drawing attention to it, and getting them out the next day, I have no regrets, absolutely."
Sarandon makes it clear that disrupting the Oscar ceremony did not come easliy to her. "I was raised a good Catholic girl, and you don't make waves. You smile, and you keep the conversation going, and you try to make everything go smoothly. I just felt there was no other choice. And the fact of the matter was, it worked. The last thing you want to do is to end up in a situation like in the 50s, where people were afraid to open their mouths. The right to speak out is what's great about this country." - Susan Sarandon, The Hollywood Reporter SHOWEST Talent Special Issue, March 12, 1998
"I am a very ordinary person who just happens to be in an extraordinary position. I can garner the media attention that these causes so desperately need, and frankly, it's a good use of my time. But I don't put in even part of the hours that the people who run these organizations, day in and day out. Those are the real heroes we should be honoring." - Susan Sarandon in Daily Variety, March 10, 1998
"I think what makes a person sexy at any age is that they seem like they're saying yes to life, however that manifests itself." - Sarandon quoted to Diane Sawyer for "Primetime" (ABC), Sep. 22, 2004
"I've started to go to the gym for the first time in years. I worry about keeping my strength up. I don't mind lines and wrinkles, but I'm not happy if I start to look kind of droopy. I've read that by the time you get into your 70s you've kind of moved beyond gender and just become a force. You're beyond the expectations and limitations that gender throws upon you. If I could end up like Melina Mercouri or Jeanne Moreau, where you can still see that fire,that would be fine." - Sarandon to Premiere, January 1996
"The gift of acting is just numerous incarnations. Forget about walking in somebody else's moccasins. You're in their house. You're in their clothes. You're in their head. You're in their lives. When you do that it can all be reduced to what do people need? They want to be loved, they're afraid of dying, they want to reach out." - Susan Sarandon on acting to Paul Fischer of Cranky Critic, 2002
"Well, I was always political. I was arrested in high school for Vietnam and civil rights protests and all kinds of things. When I was little, I would always make sure that my dolls alternated their clothes, I didn't want one to always be dressed nicer than the other." - Sarandon to Premiere, January 1996
"Yes, in hindsight I'm proud of myself that I took an absolutely humiliating experience and turned it into a fairly decent performance. I was given my role very shortly before we began shooting. I learned a lot from 'Witches of Eastwick,' more to do with life lessons than acting. I learned a lot about the business, I learned a lot about blaming yourself for being taken advantage of, and how destructive that can be. And then I worked with [director] George Miller again, so what can I say?" - Susan Sarandon speaking about her experience on "The Witches of Eastwick" in Movieline, January-February 1995
SOON TO BE SEEN IN:
'The Calling'
CAREER SO FAR…
(2014) 'Tammy' with Melissa McCarthy, Mark Duplass, Kathy Bates, Allison Janney and Dan Aykroyd
(2014) 'Ping Pong Summer' with Lea Thompson, John Hannah, Amy Sedaris and Judah Friedlander
(2014) 'The Last of Robin Hood' with Kevin Kline and Dakota Fanning
(2013) 'The Calling' as a detective with Topher Grace
(2013) 'The Big Wedding' as the gorgeous Bebe with Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton, Robin Williams, Katherine Heigl, Topher Grace, Ben Barnes and Amanda Seyfried
(2013) 'The Company You Keep' with Robert Rdfor, Shia LaBeouf, Julie Christie, Stanley Tucci, Anna Kendrick,
(2013) 'Snitch' with Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, Barry Pepper
(2012) 'Cloud Atlas' in multiple roles with Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving and Ben Whishaw
(2012) 'That's My Boy' with Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Leighton Meester and Vanilla Ice
(2011) 'Arbitrage' with Richard Gere, Brit Marling, Tim Roth and Nate Parker
(2011) 'Robot and Frank' with Frank Langella, James Marsden, Liv Tyler and Jeremy Strong
(2011) 'Jeff, Who Lives At Home' with Ed Helms, Jason Segel, Rae Dawn Chong and Judy Greer
(2010) 'Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps' directed by Oliver Stone, with Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf and Carey Mulligan
(2010) 'Solitary Man' with Michael Douglas, Jesse Eisenberg and Mary Louise Parker
(2010) HBO telemovie 'You Don't Know Jack' with Al Pacino and John Goodman
(2010) "Leaves of Grass' with Edward Norton and Richard Dreyfuss
(2009) 'The Greatest' with Pierce Brosnan and Carey Mulligan
(2009) 'Peacock' with Cillian Murphy and Ellen Page
(2009) Peter Jackson directed adaptation of 'The Lovely Bones' with Saoirse Ronan and Mark Wahlberg
(2008) 'The Middle of Nowhere' with Eva Amurri and Anton Yelchin
(2008) Co-starred with Emile Hirsch and John Goodman in Wachowski brothers’ “Speed Racer”
(2007) Co-starred opposite Tommy Lee Jones in Paul Haggis' "In the Valley of Elah"
(2007) Co-starred with Billy Bob Thornton in "Mr. Woodcock"
(2007) Co-starred with Max Von Sydow in "Emotional Arithmetic"
(2007) Co-starred with Ralph Fiennes in “Bernard and Doris” directed by Bob Balaban
(2007) Played the evil queen in Disney's modern-day animation and live-action fairy tale, "Enchanted"
(2006) Guest-starred in several episodes of Denis Leary's FX drama "Rescue Me"
(2005) Played Orlando Bloom's mother in Cameron Crowe's drama "Elizabethtown"
(2005) Co-starred as James Gandolfini's wife in "Romance & Cigarettes" directed by John Turturro; film released theatrically in 2007
(2004) Starred opposite Jude Law in "Alfie" a remake of the 1966 film which starred Michael Caine
(2004) Cast as Richard Gere's wife in "Shall We Dance?" a remake of the 1996 Japanese film
(2002) Played the title character's mother in "Igby Goes Down"; received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress
(2002) Co-starred with Goldie Hawn in "The Banger Sisters"
(2002) Co-starred opposite Dustin Hoffman in "Moonlight Mile"
(2001) Voiced the dog Ivy in the feature "Cats & Dogs"
(2001) Made guest appearance in an episode of "Friends" (NBC), playing a soap opera actress; received Emmy nomination
(2000) Provided the voice for Coco La Bouche in the animated film "Rugrats in Paris - The Movie"
(2000) Had cameo role as painter Alice Neel in "Joe Gould's Secret," directed by Stanley Tucci
(1999) Made cameo appearance in Robbins' feature "The Cradle Will Rock"
(1999) Received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
(1999) Starred as a single mother of a teenager in Wayne Wang's "Anywhere But Here"
(1998) Co-starred with Ed Harris and Julia Roberts in the comedy-drama "Stepmom"; also served as executive producer
(1998) Cast as a movie star married to Gene Hackman who calls upon old friend detective Paul Newman for assistance in Robert Benton's "Twilight"
(1996) Provided the voice of the Sider for "James and the Giant Peach"
(1995) Starred in Tim Robbins' "Dead Man Walking" opposite Sean Penn; finally won Oscar as Best Actress; Robbins' nomination as Best Director made them the first couple since Cassavetes and Rowlands to be jointly nominated for their work together
(1994) Picked up a fourth Best Actress Oscar nomination for her turn as a non-nonense Southern attorney in "The Client"
(1994) Portrayed the matriarch of the March family in Gillian Armstrong's "Little Women"
(1992) Reteamed with Miller for "Lorenzo's Oil," earning her third Best Actress Academy Award nomination
(1992) Played small role in Tim Robbins' feature directing debut, "Bob Roberts"
(1991) Co-starred with Geena Davis in the female buddy film, "Thelma & Louise," directed by Ridley Scott; earned second Best Actress Oscar nomination
(1991) Made cameo appearance as herself in Robert Altman's "The Player," starring Tim Robbins
(1990) Portrayed older waitress who becomes involved with younger yuppie James Spader in "White Palace"
(1988) Met companion Tim Robbins while co-starring in hit comedy "Bull Durham"
(1987) First film with director George Miller, "The Witches of Eastwick"
(1985) Starred as a housewife investigating a murder in the comedy-drama "Compromising Positions"; was pregnant with first child during filming which was noticably visible in some scenes
(1985) Co-starred as Edda Ciano, the dictator's daughter in the HBO miniseries "Mussolini: The Decline and Fall of Il Duce"
(1983) Love scene with Catherine Deneuve in Tony Scott's "The Hunger" created a minor furor
(1982) Played Beauty in "Beauty and the Beast" episode of Showtime's "Faerie Tale Theatre"
(1982) Starred opposite Christopher Walken in the acclaimed PBS drama "Who Am I This Time?"
(1982) Acted with John Cassavetes and wife Gena Rowlands in Paul Mazursky's "Tempest," loosely based on Shakespeare's play
(1980) Off-Broadway debut in "A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking"
(1980) Reteamed with Malle for "Atlantic City"; earned first Best Actress Oscar nomination playing a young casino employee who falls for older Burt Lancaster
(1978) First film with director Louis Malle, "Pretty Baby," playing Brooke Shields' prostitute mother
(1975) Co-starred as Janet in cult hit "The Rocky Horror Picture Show"
(1975) Was leading lady to Robert Redford in "The Great Waldo Pepper"
(1974) Played the fictionalised heroine in the TV dramatisation "F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Last of the Belles" (ABC)
(1972) Acted on the daytime soap "Search for Tomorrow"
(1972) Broadway debut as Tricia Nixon in Gore Vidal's "An Evening With Richard Nixon and . . ."
(1970-1971) First regular TV role, appeared in the ABC daytime soap, "A World Apart"
(1970) Screen debut in "Joe"; had accompanied then-husband Chris Sarandon to his audition for the film; she was hired instead
Began career as a model with the Ford Agency
THEATRE:
Susan Sarandon starred alongside fellow Academy Award winner Geoffrey Rush in Eugene Ionesco's comedy 'Exit The King' on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York from (7 March 2009 previews) 26 March to 14 June 2009.
Susan Sarandon received Drama Desk nominations for her roles in the Off-Broadway productions of 'Extremities' and 'A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking' and also starred in 'The Exonerated' Off-Broadway and 'The Guys' Off-Off Broadway.
Susan appeared on Broadway in Gore Vidal's controversial ensemble piece, 'An Evening with Richard Nixon', in 1972.
INTERVIEWS:
Silver Screen’s Supermum:
Playing a mother can be the death knell for an actress' career. But for Susan Sarandon, it's been a rebirth of sorts.
She was a long-suffering mum in ``Lorenzo's Oil,'' a dying mum in ``Stepmom'' and supermum in ``Little Women.'' In her latest motherly incarnation, Sarandon gets to show off a side of her that audiences have always appreciated. As a flamboyant single mother in ``Anywhere But Here,'' opening Friday, she is as blatantly sexy as she has ever been on screen -- which is saying a lot for the actress who tantalized Burt Lancaster by squeezing lemons all over her body in the 1980 classic ``Atlantic City.''
This wide range of mother roles proves the point Sarandon is making over her morning coffee in a hotel room.
``Mothers are not one-dimensional cliches. There are as many different kinds of mothers as there are different kinds of teenagers or baseball players,'' she says, tugging on the sleeves of her sweater as if for emphasis.
Sarandon, 53, is dressed in black, which makes her auburn hair stand out. Her face is lined and as intriguing as ever. It's no surprise that Modern Maturity made her the cover girl for a recent issue on sexy people over 50.
``That has gotten me more attention than anything,'' she says with a husky laugh. ``Everybody in my building told me, `It's so great that you did that.' Somehow the significance of this has escaped me. But if it means a lot to older people, it's fine with me.''
Sarandon seems comfortable with who she is at this stage in her life. Her accomplishments include first and foremost an apparently happy home life with actor-director Tim Robbins, her companion of 13 years, and her three children: two boys, Miles and Jack, with Robbins and an older daughter, Eva, whose father is Italian filmmaker Franco Amurri.
``I became a mother very, very late,'' she says. ``I was very lucky to have had my second son at 45. I was thinking about having a fourth child -- I love being pregnant and I love little babies. But then I thought, no, I've got one who is about to be a teenager and I better be awake and vigilant for that. If you're nursing, you're just not worth anything. So as seductive as those little arms around your neck are, I decided to move on to the next step.''
Her family isn't her only accomplishment. Sarandon also won a best-actress Oscar in 1995 for ``Dead Man Walking,'' directed by Robbins.
By contrast, Adele, her character in ``Anywhere But Here,'' based on Mona Simpson's semiautobiographical novel, has almost nothing she can point to as a success. The one exception is her lovely and accomplished 14- year-old daughter, Ann. As played by Natalie Portman, Ann seems remarkably grown up, more like Adele's parent than her child.
Adele's insecurities make her act out in outrageous ways. For instance, her clothes are too garish and too short for someone her age. ``My sons, who are 7 and 10, found my performance just so embarrassing. They were just humiliated by the fact that I was dressing and acting like that,'' Sarandon says. On the other hand, her daughter, who is the same age as Ann, thought she was pretty funny in the movie. ``But she did say, `If I was going through that with my mother, I wouldn't think it was funny.' ''
There are some similarities in the way her real-life daughter and her on-screen one relate to her. ``I must be something like Adele because I am a source of embarrassment to my daughter, Eva. I'm certainly not that flamboyant and that inappropriate consistently and insensitive consistently. But Eva lays out outfits for me because I go to the gym, and left on my own I would never get out of my slobby gym clothes.
``There is always a point where children find their parents embarrassing. The idea that they would be having sex is heinous. There is nothing you can do. So when they get to that point, I just say, `It's my job as a mother to be embarrassing.' ''
Sarandon identified with the idea of letting go raised by the movie. Ann and Adele have a symbiotic relationship that's hard for both to break away from.
Sarandon had a deja vu feeling during the scene where she puts Ann on an airplane for college. ``Because Eva's dad lives in Italy, I've had that scene at the airport a number of times, but certainly not where it meant her being gone for any long periods of time. Now Eva is starting to say, `I think I want to go away to college.' And she just started high school!''
Odds are she will handle the separation better than the hapless Adele. ``There's a fine line between loving someone fiercely and wanting to help them and guide them and be with them and allowing them to be who they are,'' Sarandon says. ``How you manage that balancing act is certainly part of what the movie is about.''
While considering whether to do the film, she realized it was crucial that the actress who plays her daughter be tough in her own right. ``I wasn't interested in seeing this mother bullying and abusing her child for two hours. You needed someone who would carry the weight on the screen, who had a core of health and dignity and could hold the movie together so the other person can be chewing up the scenery and be all over the place and be kind of ditsy.''
Portman was her first choice. But the young actress almost turned down the role because it called for a nude scene, which she won't do for personal and religious reasons. Sarandon helped convince director Wayne Wang that the scene would be worth rewriting if it meant getting Portman on board. Now it's Ann's boyfriend, played by Corbin Allred, who partially disrobes. ``It's far more interesting now because she is in control. That was what the scene that existed was about, but she just got more undressed. It wasn't necessary, and I totally respect her family's religious reservations,'' says Sarandon, who marvels at how together her young co-star is.
Sarandon says Wang understands how to work with women, and she is eager to do another movie with him soon. She has in mind a Western that's being developed by her production company in which she would play a mother again.
Next month, she will be seen in ``Cradle Will Rock,'' a movie about Orson Welles set in the '30s, when he was a stage director. Robbins directed the film. ``It's an epic with a huge cast. Tim has done a brilliant job of weaving all the stories together. I have a nice little gem of a part.''
Sarandon -- once romantically involved with Louis Malle, her director on ``Atlantic City'' and ``Pretty Baby,'' and with Sean Penn, who, like Robbins, is quite a few years her junior -- is surprised and gratified by the staying power of her relationship with Robbins. They met in 1987 on the set of ``Bull Durham,'' in which she romances Robbins but winds up with Kevin Costner.
``Tim and I became friends and weren't together as lovers initially,'' she recalls. ``So we had a chance to get to know each other first. I just respected him. There weren't many actors his age who had founded a theater company and had any kind of moral bottom line. Tim is very serious about parenting, very traditional, even more than I am. So we're a good combination because I'm a little more irreverent.''
She acknowledges that the two have had their ups and downs. ``We are still trying to make it work. There is always something. But the question is: Do you want to be intimate with someone? And if you do and you respect this person and he makes you laugh and you find him attractive, it might as well be this person. And then you have to find a way to get through the tough times.''
They haven't married and have no plans to, even though, as Sarandon says, laughing, ``we are incredibly committed with children and real estate and animals.''
She has her reasons for not wanting to march down the aisle. ``I just hate people treating you as a couple all the time and hate giving up who you are, which usually the burden is on the woman. So I have always had a resistance to marriage. I choose day by day to be there, and I don't take for granted this union.''
Nor does she take her career for granted. Sarandon, who made her first movie, ``Joe,'' in 1970, is amazed at its longevity.
``I have broken every rule there is. I have taken off two years at a time with each of my kids, always assuming I would never get back to work.
``I have no idea why I've been around so long. There are just certain people like Bruce Springsteen -- I'm certainly not comparing myself to Bruce Springsteen -- but there are certain artists who have a longevity because they don't get stuck. If you keep going to a new place, you stand a better chance. You can do that sex symbol thing in your 20s. But it doesn't interest me now. I like to play ``ordinary'' women now because I think what women do -- their reserves of strength and selflessness -- is just amazing.''
Article by Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer – Sunday 7 November 1999
