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Doris’s Day

Susan Sarandon has a great eye for projects, including the recent HBO movie Bernard and Doris, in which she played the late, great Doris Duke in an Emmy-nominated performance. The legend --Sarandon, that is -- spoke to us as she geared up for the Emmys on September 21.
An Advocate.com exclusive posted September 2, 2008
Doris’s Day

Nominated for 10 Emmy Awards, Bernard and Doris is the little HBO film that could. The $500,000 production imagines a loving, albeit platonic, six-year relationship between late billionaire Doris Duke (an Emmy-nominated Susan Sarandon) and her gay Irish butler, Bernard Lafferty (Ralph Fiennes, Emmy-nominated for his role as well). We caught up with the always outspoken, politically aware Sarandon, who lives in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City with partner Tim Robbins.

Are you excited about the Emmy nominations?
All excited! It’s just been something so unforeseen, and the whole spirit in which we undertook the film really was lovely and brave on the part of so many friends who got involved and made such a big difference to make it what it was. For all who took this Kierkegaardian leap of faith and worked for nothing, to have these Emmy nominations come out of nowhere is so sweet, and we’re all so happy. To be able to say at least they got an Emmy nod means a lot to me. My only disappointment is my friend Frankie Diago, who did the sets, didn’t get one. It seemed like a place these people actually lived, and she did a great job with nothing. 

You’ve played quite a few real-life people now. Would you like to play Hillary Clinton in the movie of her life?
No. I’ve been around her and don’t find her… At this point, to say after what’s happened to her campaign and how they squandered all that money and all the different reasons her campaign fell apart, to blame it on sexism, I find so destructive to every young girl who dreams about making a difference through government. Instead of saying, "Look how far I’ve gotten and you can do it too," and all the positive things she could have done, she’s turned into such a blamer and whiner, as if that was the reason, when clearly she wouldn’t have been in the position she was in if she hadn’t been a woman. If she hadn’t been married to that man and hadn’t had the Democratic machine behind her. To now turn around and say it was sexism I find so dishonorable and really destructive to women all over, young women all over. So I don’t really respect her enough to want to play her, and I find it sad and disappointing. 

Can Obama actually win?
Why wouldn’t he be able to win?

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Ferber’s writing has appeared in Entertainment Weekly, New York, and Time Out New York.

Reader Comments

These comments are reproduced as written by visitors to this Web site. They have not been edited for content, grammar, or spelling. The viewpoints appearing here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or views of advocate.com, The Advocate, or its affiliates.

  • Name: gaypastor
    Date posted: 2008-09-06 9:03 PM
    Hometown: PA

    Comment:

    Susan - my she/ro - you just lost my respect! I can't believe the opinion you've stated against Hillary and your decision to join the chorus trying to now "blame the victim" by telling her to stop whining! WOW! There goes my "Thelma and Louise" DVD out the window!!! So much for women sticking together! No wonder we can't ever get a women in the Oval Office! Such bickering!


  • Name: Stephanie
    Date posted: 2008-09-04 5:02 PM
    Hometown: Baltimore

    Comment:

    I have a news flash for Susan Sarandon. Hillary Clinton has never once said that sexism was responsible for her loss. Ever. And what is destructive to young women is their inability to recognize how sexism shaped the attitudes about Hillary Clinton long before she ever ran for President and paved the way for the dehumanization of her in the press for the past sixteen years. But I can see that because I don't let the press do my thinking for me. Furthermore, I find her suggestion that Hillary Clinton would not be successful were it not for her husband to be sexist and repulsive. Susan might be a talented actress but her inability to recognize the sexism directed at Hillary is disturbing and her nasty attitude towards a remarkable woman rather disheartening. She should be embarassed to have been so shallow when she need not have said anything at all.


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