Geena Davis has opened up about her “struggle” to accept her beauty, revealing that she “desperately wanted to be pretty but wasn’t able to think I was”.
The 66-year-old award-winning actor, who is releasing a memoir titled Dying of Politeness this month, said she never thought of herself as beautiful.
The Thelma & Louise star became a model before beginning her acting career, which started when she was cast by director Sydney Pollack in his 1982 cult classic Tootsie . She starred opposite Dustin Hoffman.
Speaking to The Times ahead of the release of her book, Davis said that becoming a model did nothing to convince her of her own beauty.
“I just thought I had figured out some magical way of holding my body so they would think I was pretty,” she said.
Asked if, at any point during her successful acting career, she ever came to accept it, Davis said: “Am I beautiful? I can be beautiful, where I actually accept it, when I’m all dressed up, makeup and hair and everything.
“Then I think, ‘Oh yeah, I’m not so bad’. But it’s a struggle. It’s [always been] a struggle.”
However, Davis, who has been married three times, including to Jeff Goldblum and Renny Harlin, revealed that she feels more attractive as she gets older.
While her struggle “hasn’t been a source of pain”, she said: “It’s got much better over the years. I feel like I’ve got more attractive with every decade. Either I have or I’m feeling better about myself. Which is great.”
Davis has three children, 20-year-old daughter Alizeh, and 18-year-old twin sons Kaiis and Kian, who she shares with her former partner Reza Jaharry.
Elsewhere in the interview, Davis recalled a “bad” encounter with Bill Murray in the early days of her career.
The pair worked together on the 1990 film Quick Change. Davis claimed that Murray insisted on using a massage device on her during their first meting despite her repeatedly saying no.
She added that, later, while they were filming on location, Murray began “screaming” at her in front of the cast and crew for being late when she had been waiting for her wardrobe.
“That was bad,” she said. “I should have walked out of that or profoundly defended myself, in which case I wouldn’t have got the part.”
The Independent has contacted Murray’s representatives for comment.
