Geena Davis on Childhood Trauma, a Cut Scene From A League of Their Own, and Her Memoir, Dying of Politeness

As the star of some of Hollywood’s most memorable cinematic masterpieces, Geena Davis has remained unforgettable. Whether she was playing tough-as-nails softball star Dottie in A League of Their Own, emotionally abused housewife turned outlaw Thelma in the iconic buddy-comedy road trip film Thelma & Louise, or eccentric dog trainer Muriel in The Accidental Tourist, she is a scene-stealer beloved for her unconventional appeal.

Beyond acting, Davis has flourished in other areas, as a proponent of feminism and outspoken voice during the #MeToo movement, even founding an institute focused on fostering gender parity in media.

But the 66-year-old actor’s latest project is something completely different: a memoir titled Dying of Politeness, a collection of reflective essays that detail how her New England upbringing shaped her life and career in Hollywood, and the challenges that came with her success. “I’ve been collecting notes for at least 10 years about the things that I might want to mention in a book,” Davis tells Vanity Fair over Zoom from her couch in Los Angeles. Writing the book meant combing through her most uncomfortable on-set experiences, including Bill Murray asking her to demonstrate a massage device called “the Thumper,” and reliving childhood traumas to spill them on the page.

In an interview with VF, Davis discussed her new memoir, bad on-set behavior, and the incredible scene that was cut from A League of Their Own.

Vanity Fair: The title really encompasses your personality throughout the book and the way you tried to placate other people’s emotions over the years. Do you feel like you’ve gotten to a place where you’ve been able to prioritize your own feelings?

Geena Davis: I’m definitely much better at it. In fact, 10 years ago, Susan Sarandon and I were doing a photo shoot for the 20th anniversary of Thelma & Louise, and we stepped onto the set and in unison, we said, “Could you raise the camera, please?” [To focus on their faces instead of on their chests.] And I was like, “Oh, I’ve finally become you,” [to Susan]. Because I would never have said something like that without “I’m sorry, would you mind?” But Susan never uses qualifiers before what she says, and that’s my goal. I had never spent any time around a woman who moves through the world like that, where she feels very comfortable saying what she thinks, what she wants and also seeing that nobody’s reacting. That also proved not only can you do that stuff, but the world isn’t going to end if you actually say what you want or think.

What was your process while writing Dying of Politeness?

I ended up having to make a schedule for myself to write because once I sat down to do it, it was fun and flowed along, but making myself do it was the challenge. I’m a very talented procrastinator.

One detail that was interesting to hear about was that you never let your parents know that you didn’t graduate college. But it was a “fact” listed on Wikipedia that lived uncorrected online for a long time. Your parents really never knew the truth before they passed away?

They never knew. Who knows if they suspected it? But they certainly never said anything. It says that I graduated in all of the press that I did because if I admitted it in the press, they would then see it and realize it. So until they died, I didn’t talk about it.

Bill Murray has often been seen as an affable guy, but there have been more than a handful of allegations against him over the years. You write that during the making of Quick Change, he tested you to see if you would be “compliant,” as you put it, by asking you to lie on a bed and try a massage device called “the Thumper.” You also write that he screamed at you on set to put you in your place. Do you think these anecdotes will ultimately surprise people?

They might be surprised to hear [the stories about Bill Murray] if they haven’t heard stories about him previously, because he comes off as an affable, fun-loving guy, and many times he was or could be. But once I had that experience, on day one of the movie, then everything about him after that was completely colored by knowing what lurks within. I saw it very, very often when he would deal with other people that way. I don’t know if I said this in the book, but I was watching him tear apart somebody one day on set. He finished, and the other person went away, and he turned around sort of self-satisfied and I said, “Man, I can’t wait for you to do that to me again, because now I know how I’ll react.” And he said, “Oh, I don’t have to. You behaved after that.” So he thought he has to go off on somebody to make sure they “behave.” Whatever his idea of “behaving” is—not challenging him, I guess. [Vanity Fair has reached out to Murray’s lawyer for comment.]

Have you seen him in the years since?

No, I haven’t. This is the first time that I’ve talked about this, so he’ll see that I wrote about it. But when we were doing publicity for that movie, I was all cooperative and did interviews with him. I didn’t remember this, but somebody sent me a Première magazine cover…We look like we're having the most fun, and it's hard to remember what I thought while I was doing those things. Did I just go on autopilot because you’re supposed to be positive and agreeable in publicity?

You battled a handful of phobias in your childhood that caused you distress—everything from an irrational fear of dying from touching a poinsettia to being convinced you had breast cancer at 12. How did those fears limit you?

I was very creative. I thought of so many things to think about, including the normal stuff like “don’t break a mirror” and “don’t step on the crack.” Everything became a ritual to the point where I had a newspaper route that I walked and the customers would often come out of their houses to see where the heck I was because they couldn’t wait to get their paper. But I couldn’t move forward unless I found sticks that were shaped like a “y,” so it would mean “yes, it’s okay to move forward.” I found this long pole for hiking, and it would bounce if you put it on the ground, and I couldn’t move forward unless it was bouncing correctly. I had a lot of stuff like that. I realized that I was very, very anxious about doing the right thing and getting perfect grades, and I started thinking to myself, in 10 years, you won’t remember that you got a B on a math test. It’s not gonna matter. I think all those superstitions were a way to try to comfort myself: “Well, I won’t have to be so worried if this thing happens.”

You talked about these childhood superstitions and phobias, but there was a specific situation that was very traumatic during your adolescence: being molested by a man on your paper route. How did you handle reliving that experience while writing the book?

It caused a lot of shame in me that that happened because I didn’t know what he was doing when he was touching me in that way. I didn’t know that it was wrong. I had no reaction to it, and then to see my mother’s reaction, [it was like], “Oh, my God, this was a big deal. I did something terribly wrong.” I knew that he was also to blame because she strolled up the street and told him never to touch me again and then told me never to go up the stairs to his apartment again. But she didn’t explain what had happened or why it was bad to do the thing that he was doing, so it just felt like this horrible secret that I was carrying around.

I’m sorry you had to go through that. There’s advice Dustin Hoffman gave you during the making of Tootsie for how to stave off sexual advances: To say, “Oh, I would love to—you’re very attractive—but I wouldn’t want to ruin the sexual tension between us.” Have you ever passed it on to anyone else?

No, I never felt the need to. It would have to be somebody just starting out that I thought might need advice like that. But one wish is that all of us were told from the beginning that you don’t have to tolerate sexual advances, inappropriate sexualization, or sexual abuse. The thinking was…that if you complain about something, they’re just gonna get somebody else. It’s part of your job to put up with flirting and things that are much heavier than flirting and just get through it somehow, so you can seem agreeable and keep working. #MeToo caused a huge change in Hollywood that I think a lot of will stick. Because now, with no hesitation, if people find out they’re having a smaller salary than their male costar, they’ll talk about it publicly. Agents will never send a young female actor to a hotel suite for an audition or anything like that. So there’s definitely been some improvements in that area.

You were often referred to in the industry as being “not conventionally pretty enough” or “too tall.” How did getting your looks dissected over time affect you?

It didn’t really have a big impact on me because I was getting work. The parts where people thought that I wasn’t pretty enough were the kinds of roles that I wouldn’t have wanted to play in hindsight because they were the girlfriend of the person who’s doing all the fun stuff, and your job was to be really pretty. So I managed to avoid those parts almost exclusively.

It’s 30 years since A League of Their Own was released, and it was so juicy to hear some behind-the-scenes details about the movie. Can you tell me more about the romantic scene that was cut between Tom Hanks’s Jimmy and your character, Dottie, in the movie?

You can tell something’s going on between them. They’re significant to each other. But this was a scene at night on a pitcher’s mound where we ended up kissing, and we realized that that can’t happen. Evidently, when they tested the movie, people just went nuts about that. Like, “We don’t want to see that.” Also, the original players who were advisers in the movie said, “Do not make it seem like we would sleep with somebody or would get romantically involved with somebody else when our husbands were at war. It’s wrong.” Thankfully, it was cut.

You have a handful of projects coming up including the Zoë Kravitz vehicle Pussy Island. Can you share any details about your role in it?

Yes, I am Channing Tatum’s character’s assistant. He’s a very wealthy, successful, famous guy and has a retreat where he can go and bring his buddies and chicks. But I’m inexplicably very clumsy. I’m constantly dropping things or tripping, eating Skittles compulsively, and you don’t realize until the end why I’m like that—and then you find out. It’s gonna be a great movie.

What do you want for your career at this point in your life?

Well, I have one dream role: I’d like to play Eleanor Roosevelt at some point, because she was tall like me, and I know I can look a lot like her. She was famous for her whole life, so I can’t age out of playing her, which is very fun. But I just want to work. Acting is my passion, and I want to do it as much as I can.