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Gina Gershon

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It was, however, her under-dressed, over-the-top performance in Showgirls that put Gershon on the map — and turned her into something of a cult figure. ''It's become this big thing, like The Rocky Horror Picture Show,'' she says, puffing her cigar some more. ''All these drag queens show up at midnight screenings wearing hospital gowns and cowboy hats. RuPaul came up to me once and not only knew Cristal's lines and dance routines but the color lipstick she wore. That's when I knew I had really done my job.''

Bound probably won't inspire many drag queens, but its unconventional sexual aesthetics did help make it a hit at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Treading a razor-thin line between feminist-lesbian correctness and straight-male-slob lasciviousness, it may be the only movie ever made that both Howard Stern and Valerie Solanas could love. Still, after the critical beating Showgirls took, slipping into bed with another woman did give Gershon pause.

''It was a role that literally everyone said not to take,'' she recalls. ''My agents thought it was crazy. But when I read the script, I just thought it was amazing.''

Filming Bound's torrid one-and-a-half-minute love scene turned out to be not so traumatic after all. ''We were very nervous going in,'' remembers Tilly. ''But in some ways it was easier than doing a love scene with a guy. With two girls, it's more like a slumber party. You're like, 'Put your hand there so this roll of fat doesn't show' or 'Put your breast here so it doesn't look so squished.' We were both kind of helping each other. It was really a bonding experience, especially 'cause you're doing it all day long.''

Gershon puts it slightly differently. ''Really, the only difference with a girl is that you talk about the sales at Barneys first,'' she says. ''It was like, 'Oh, where'd you get those shoes?' Then they'd yell 'Action!' and we'd get into it.''

Waiter! Another Cosmo! Quick!

Originally posted Jun 28, 1996 Published in issue #333-334 Jun 28, 1996 Order article reprints
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