Geena Davis says she was treated negatively by directors after her Oscar win.
Geena Davis claims her 1989 Oscar win initially impacted her career in a negative way
The 65-year-old Hollywood icon won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her performance as Muriel Pritchett in the 1988 romantic film 'The Accidental Tourist’ actress but in the immediate aftermath her recognition caused her problems in her career.
Speaking on the Allison Interviews podcast, she recalled: “I had two directors, after I won the Oscar, who I had a rocky start with, because they assumed that I was going to think I was ‘all that’ and they wanted to make sure that I didn’t feel like I was ‘all that'.
“Without having met me or having spent any time with me or anything, they just assumed I was going to be like, ‘Well, now no one is going to tell me what to do!’ I think maybe because I was a woman, the directors felt that way. And maybe it was even unconscious bias that they would maybe do it to a woman and not a man. But they didn’t want a woman to potentially cause them any problems.
“They wanted to make sure I knew my place, and maybe … it probably wouldn’t happen to a man.”
Geena - who went on to win the Best Actress – Television Series Drama at the Golden Globes for her role in 'Commander in Chief' - insists she always remained humble after her Oscar win and never thought of herself as a big deal.
She added: "I didn’t ever think, ‘This is my magic ticket to doing everything I want to do,’ or, like, now I was at the top of the A-list or anything like that,
“I didn’t think of it that way, but I did unexpectedly feel a tremendous feeling of having accomplished something, I thought, ‘Well, I got that out of the way. I never have to wonder if I’m going to get one of these things.’”
At the 1992 Oscars, Geena was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in 'Thelma & Louise' but she lost out in the category to Jodie Foster, who was recognised for her portray of FBI agent Clarice Starling in horror film 'The Silence of the Lambs'.
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