While Rosanna Arquette may have played meek, she’s far from it in real life.
“I definitely stand up for myself in the world,” Rosanna exclusively tells Us Weekly, after comments she made about a past collaborator’s passion for using a racial slur in his work.
But her candor is not new. When she was 11, Rosanna’s parents took her and younger siblings Richmond, Patricia, Alexis and David – many years before they all began acting – to live on a commune in Virginia. That commune was the type that lacked running water, electricity or a working bathroom, but what it didn’t lack, Rosanna recalls, was racism.
“I was seeing it as a 14 year old where it was really horrible,” she says, “and I told my mother, ‘I hate it here, I don’t want to be here.’”
Readying to leave, Rosanna, now 66, was kicked out of school. “I wrote ‘black power’ on my fist, which was not thought of so well in a school where the principal probably had a hood in his closet.”
Since then, she has continued to speak out in opposition of war, injustice and — in 2017 — Harvey Weinstein. Weinstein, now serving a multi-year sentence at Rikers Island for rape and other sexual assault crimes, recently claimed Rosanna, along with Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow, were “exaggerating” when they recounted their own experiences with the disgraced movie producer. Rosanna had not quite finalized her thoughts on Weinstein’s carceral claims when she sat down with Us, but shared them shortly after in a detailed two-page response.
While Rosanna has survived the effects of speaking out, she tells us she “absolutely” sees celebrities afraid to do the same due to fear. “I’m glad to see some Ice Out pins out there but I was kind of shocked at the crickets [at] some the award [shows],” she explains. “Yes, they are meant to just be entertainment, but [they can have] some of the most impactful, amazing speeches, including my sister’s for equal pay. It’s important. Now the media seems to be owned by the people who want to suppress free expression.”
Ahead of the biggest award show of the season, the Desperately Seeking Susan star spoke at length with Us. Our exclusive chat covered everything from healing from codependency issues in a family of actors and Timothée Chalamet’s recent comments about ballet and opera, to working with everyone from Madonna to Charli XCX, turning down big commercial roles in her youth but later missing out on roles she wanted and her recent independent film Grapefruit (available to rent/buy on demand).
What about playing Grapefruit’s Evelyn was a challenge for you?
I understood the codependent thing. My mother was a codependent, my whole family has that, and we’re all working through that. In my own life I am now in a place where I am really working hard and healing. I spent a lot of years with my daughter being super codependent and now I’m letting go and she has her own life, her own path. She’s brilliant and I don’t have to be on her about things. When you’re a parent, you want to protect your baby with everything you have from the lessons that you’ve learned in life, but it may be their lesson to learn for their own growth, right? That’s usually what codependence is, not really dealing with your own stuff.
When did you realize that there was a difference between protectiveness and codependency? Especially now that your daughter is famous in her own right too, you know what it’s like to be in the limelight.
The vultures are out and I think it’s way more challenging in many, many ways now, because we have this online, immediate criticism or hatred or amazing love. Advice that I gave to her that I don’t know if she took [was], ‘don’t read the reviews, good or bad.’ Because at the end of the day, there’ll be people that praise you. And if you put so much into that and then they slam you and hate you, and it makes you feel awful about yourself there’s something horrible and wrong about that. So don’t read them, because everybody’s gonna have an opinion.
Who or what taught you that?
I learned that for myself because I myself experienced it, which was incredible praise in the early years, like, beyond crazy, great praise. They build you up to rip you to shreds. Look at what’s happening with Timothée Chalamet right now. It’s a perfect example. This guy is, like, the most amazing actor [with] an incredible performance. He said something that was in no way shape or form meant to harm anybody, or harm opera or harm ballet. You understand where he was coming from, but they took it and turned it into this huge drama that is pretty sad. We all have to learn how to watch what we say in the press or online. God knows, I’m a perfect example of that.
After the commune in Virginia, you went and lived in New Jersey with friends of your parents. Did growing up with independence influence your own style of parenting?
We were really fortunate, the Arquettes, to be raised the way we were, even though it was unconventional. Our parents were incredibly brilliant artists in their own right. My mother was a poet, acting teacher and actress. My father was an actor, musician and wrote poetry too. We were raised by big-time activists, so we really did know right from wrong at a very young age. To be able to bring that to my motherhood and mothering to my daughter, I think has been really impactful for her. I wish my parents were alive to see the younger generation of these kids. Because, [it’s] all of them. Patricia’s daughter, Harlow, is also an actress. Coco Arquette is amazing. She’s a singer, actress, [performs] musical theater. They’re all really gifted. And then David has little boys, and they sent a video to the family the other day, and they’re learning how to play the guitar and they’re having a little band. It’s the cutest thing! I just love that art exists in the DNA of this family and hopefully it will continue, because art heals.
You’ve been so outspoken throughout your career even when it’s been unsafe for your career or otherwise.
Without getting into it here right now, it’s been interesting and challenging this week. But I’ve never been one to not be honest with where I’m at or my feelings so it doesn’t bother me if someone can’t bear me or stand me because of how I feel and think.
You’ve stood up against sexism and racism, and for queer rights and anti-war causes. When you look at the country’s landscape now, what are you feeling?
What am I feeling? Do I burst into tears and sob deeply with you and anybody who’s a humanitarian right now? What we’re seeing, we’ve never seen this. The demise and the dismantling of our democracy is brutally, horribly painful. Dr. Astrid Heger at the Violence Intervention program down at USC Medical Center and my family started a clinic together. We did the Alexis Project, which was a LGBTQIA+ clinic that helps the community, especially young people, and they just shut it down. The impact of that has been really horrible, because I had a trans sister, Alexis Arquette, and that’s why it’s named after her. We all love her and miss her. She was brilliant at the forefront of human rights, LGBTQIA+ rights, the all encompassing who you are and who you want to be, accepting you as a human being, whoever that is, in any way, shape or form that you want to be. That’s the way I was raised and it was kind of shocking to me that the whole world wasn’t like that.
Was there a point in your career on sets where people were protecting you and then you turned into the protector of other people?
I’m very protective of young people who are coming into this business, and that goes to my daughter too, and my niece. The sexism is huge. Unfortunately, even with the #MeToo movement, it hasn’t gone away, as we’re seeing what’s going on right now with the Epstein files and everything. And it seems like it’s actually, in a lot of ways, gotten worse in a lot of areas of entertainment — in any business.
Seeing the Epstein files dissected in the media, considering you knew several of the women who were accusers, including Virginia, how does it make you feel to see this?
I haven’t seen them in a long time, and I hadn’t seen Virginia [Giuffre] for many years, like when it was all blowing up. They did a documentary on Netflix or something that I actually was in and got cut out, in the time of the #MeToo movement. So I got to meet Virginia there. We spoke a few times and had nice, great conversations. I really feel bad that… I mean, people should listen to her book, and it’s actually great to hear her voice read it.
When you’re talking about how the industry still has bad actors in it, is it men that are protecting them or women benefitting from it?
I think both. As many people that are upholding it and protecting the bad guys, they’re also a lot of warriors out there, speaking out. Incredible women, like the Ava DuVernays of the world, who are powerful forces. Victoria Mahoney is also a director who I love, just a great badass. Of course, Jane Fonda.
Harvey Weinstein gave an interview in The Hollywood Reporter this week. Did you read that interview and if so, do you have thoughts about it?
I’m in the midst of those thoughts, so I will have a response. It’s mind boggling. And it’s Oscar weekend. Who has a publicist in jail? Rikers should be shut down, and it’s an inhumanitarian place for anybody. So that I would say, but there are other jails that seem to be more humane.
Did involvement in 1982’s The Executioner’s Song deepen your progressive convictions or have projects opened your eyes to something that you were previously ignorant of?
I’m not a person that really believes in the death penalty. But there’s such evil in the world right now. For me, the biggest, horrible crime that exists in all of mankind is the rape of children. That people could even think of doing that in their lives is just so horrific on every level. It’s really the killing of a spirit, and we have many sexual survivors who’ve survived that and done great things with their lives. So there needs to be a way for people to heal their trauma in a healthy, kind, loving way from that abuse. And pray that people get through it, because it does alter your life.
Let’s move to a lighter topic and talk about The Moment with Charli XCX, which is a fun look at fame that you just starred in.
It’s now on Amazon Prime, and came out the same time as Dracula, my daughter’s movie. [Charli] wrote me this lovely letter and asked me to be a part of her film. Having been around Madonna and many, many very famous rock stars, I think it’s a really honest look, and done in a very funny way too, of what it is to be a huge sensation around the world. And how do you keep that going? Of course in every film they have to cut out stuff. But they got this really great scene between Alexander [Skarsgård] and I. No matter how old you are, you still get like, ‘Darn, I wish they kept that scene.’
Charli is a fascinating person because she always knew she would be famous. Even when you were younger, did you ever want to be super famous?
I never went into this business going for the fame. I know that sounds really cliché. I was fortunate enough to grow up around artists and [have] drilled into your head, ‘it means nothing,’ any of that. This happens to just be the job that I do love to do. It was never like, ‘I want to be famous like that.’ Even in the young years when I really had [fame], I was super freaked out and uncomfortable with it. I don’t think I ever owned it. There were other things that probably would have catapulted me into a much bigger space. I tended to turn down the big commercial movies at that time not realizing, business-wise, looking back, maybe I should have done that. [I was] sticking with a lot of the independent things. Even Desperately Seeking Susan was Orion Pictures, but it was done by Susan Seidelman, who was a real independent filmmaker. I hadn’t seen it in years and we just recently had the 40 year anniversary. We got to reminisce. We were really young in that time. I was A list at that moment when she had me in the film. Then Madonna literally exploded while we were making the movie. Like, Charli, that kind of fame. So having been around that, seeing that, and spending time with Madonna in that time, it was so overwhelming. It is huge, and everybody wants a piece of you. I think Charli really captured that struggle.
You say you turned down some big commercial roles when you were younger, what were they?
If you say it now then it feels uncomfortable because the women that are in those movies are famous, and I don’t want to be like, well, they offered it to me and … It’s creepy to do that. I don’t want to do that, it’s terrible, because I have so many great friends. There are a lot of those, but it doesn’t matter, because the truth is, it was meant to be theirs. That’s their karma and their career. When I was younger I’d really get hurt if I didn’t get something and it wasn’t offered to me. Like, why didn’t they come to me for that? I had those moments. And now for instance, I just lost something that I really would have loved to have done. And it went to Katherine LaNasa, who’s in The Pitt, and it was like, ‘Oh, that makes sense.’ You know, of course, she’s wonderful. She’s amazing. She just won an Emmy. But I said, ‘Oh.’ That’s just the great thing about being older, like it wasn’t mine, it’s hers. It’s meant to be her.
We loved seeing you and Patricia on the carpet together last month for Dracula.
It was so nice to be with her. I love her. She just invited me to Elton John’s Oscar party, but my daughter’s going to go.
As your kids have all gotten older, has it allowed you and your siblings to get close, despite you all still working a lot?
We have gone through a lot. As much as our parents were amazing artists, they had a lot of dysfunction that they worked through that we grew up. I’m the eldest, and recently I was talking to Patricia because I always felt like, ‘Well, I got really abused.’ She had her own moments, like everybody had and it impacted them, until my mom got really healthy. My mom could be really super violent and scary and that impacted all of us. But then she got help and became a therapist for abused women and really worked on herself. It was so beautiful to see her transformation. She got her license to be a therapist the week she died. But it was great to be able to present this, ‘Look, Mom, you did it.’
So are you saying that you’ve all been close, or you’ve just gone through a lot, so it’s allowed you and your siblings to find relationships as adults?
Well, I left home really young. Our mother died [in 1997], our father died [in 2001], and then Alexis died [in 2016], and the trauma… It just blew up, but it also gave us the space to look at our own stuff to work through. I just had the most amazing time with my sister. I came to go, like always, for Jane Fonda’s birthday, and I came into town and hadn’t planned to stay for Christmas. And I was going to come back, because I live on the East Coast. And [Patricia] goes, ‘Why don’t you stay for Christmas?’ So we ended up having this amazing, beautiful time. My daughter was not going to be there because she was doing her own thing, so it ended up being wonderful. Everybody’s healing, daily work on themselves. It is a daily practice.
As siblings, we’ve only really seen you and Alexis in a project together, Pulp Fiction. But other than we’ve not really seen the Arquettes in anything together.
I’d love us all to do something, all of us together, the whole thing. Let’s please do a carnival thing. [laughs]. I’ve worked with Patricia twice [on] her shows, she brought me on. I guest starred on Medium, and CSI:Cyber. Medium was fun. We had a moment where we just could not stop laughing, like, actually annoying to the crew.
We would like to see more of that.
Have you seen the Murdaugh series? She’s just incredible in everything she does. But I have a fantasy. I’d love us to do something really crazy, funny, dark stuff together. Humor but crazy. And I said, ‘It would be so fun … Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? I think she has to be the Baby Jane. And then, of course, like, I’m in the wheelchair when she brings me the rat or something. So funny.
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