Kathleen Turner has opened up about working with some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Photo / Getty Images
Kathleen Turner has opened up about working with some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Photo / Getty Images
Kathleen Turner has let rip on Hollywood's biggest names in an unfiltered new interview.
The 64-year-old actress opened up about some not-so-great encounters she had some of the greats over her four-decade career in a very frank chat with Vulture published Tuesday.
She revealed her frequent co-star Michael Douglas once admitted to her there was a competition between himself, Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty to see who could bed her first, the Daily Mail reports.
Ever since her breakthrough role as femme fatale Matty Walker in 1981's Body Heat, she said she became a "sexual target".
"I don't like being thought of as a trophy," she said. "There was an unspoken assumption that women were property to be claimed."
She revealed her frequent co-star Michael Douglas once admitted to her there was a competition between himself, Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty to see who could bed her first. Photo / Getty Images
She told one story in which a group went back to Nicholson's house, when the actor, knowing Beatty's interest in her, told her to "call Warren and tell him I don't have a corkscrew".
"Why?" she asked. "You'll see how fast he gets here," Jack replied.
Another time Turner went to a dinner party Nicholson was at and sat in an empty chair beside him for while chatting, before leaving for the night; upon returning to her hotel she received a call from him berating his "date" for abandoning him.
"Assumptions like that are why I've never lived in Los Angeles," she said. "Every time I go to that city I feel insecure."
She pointed out that all three men lost the competition.
Turner had even worse to say about her co-stars, including Burt Reynolds, with whom she starred in 1988 comedy Switching Channels, a film more famous for its behind the scenes infighting than its plot.
"Working with Burt Reynolds was terrible," she recalled. "The first day Burt came in he made me cry.
"He said something about not taking second place to a woman. His behavior was shocking. It never occurred to me that I wasn't someone's equal.
"I left the room sobbing. I called my husband [at the time, Jay Weiss] and said, 'I don't know what to do.' He said, 'You just do the job.' It got to be very hostile because the crew began taking sides.
"But as for the performance, I was able to put the negativity aside," she added. "I'm not convinced Burt was."
Turner received an Oscar nomination for her turn in 1986's Peggy Sue Got Married opposite Nicholas Cage, who infamously decided to don a weird nasal voice for his character throughout production.
"It was tough to not say, 'Cut it out'" she admitted. "But it wasn't my job to say to another actor what he should or shouldn't do."
Turner received an Oscar nomination for her turn in 1986's Peggy Sue Got Married opposite Nicholas Cage. Photo / Getty Images
She approached director Francis Ford Coppola — Cage's real-life uncle — to ask if he approved.
"It was very touchy. He [Cage] was very difficult on set. But the director allowed what Nicolas wanted to do with his role, so I wasn't in a position to do much except play with what I'd been given," she said.
"If anything, it [Cage's portrayal] only further illustrated my character's disillusionment with the past. The way I saw it was, yeah, he was that a**hole."
Although she never starred opposite Elizabeth Taylor, both women played the famous roles of Martha in Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? and Maggie in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof; Taylor on screen and Turner on stage.
"For a while I felt like half my life was making her wrongs right," Turner said. I don't think she was very skilled."
Kathleen also bemoaned the "intense pressure to repeat successful characters", accusing one Woman (a "very famous Hollywood actress" — who's name she asked to be omitted) of Pretty much playing the "same role for 20 years."
"She even looks pretty much the same," she said. "She's probably one of the richest women out there, but I would shoot myself if I were like that, only giving people what they expect."
On the small screen, Turner famously played Chandler Bing's transgender dad Helena Handbasket — formerly Charles Bing — in three episodes of Friends.
Kathleen Turner famously played Chandler Bing's transgender dad Helena Handbasket in three episodes of Friends. Photo / Supplied
"I'll be quite honest, which is my wont: I didn't feel very welcomed by the cast," she admitted.
"The Friends actors were such a clique — but I don't think my experience with them was unique. I think it was simply that they were such a tight little group that nobody from the outside mattered."
When asked how she rated their acting ability she replied: "I won't comment on that."
She did add: "Maybe if I'd had months to work with them, I'd be in a better position to evaluate their skill. But I could only judge based on the period I worked on the show, which wasn't long. I do respect the camaraderie they had. You can see camaraderie on the screen."
Kathleen remained in A-list leading roles until the early 90s when she was diagnosed with Rheumatoid arthritis, which left her in severe pain.
She turned down lead roles in Ghost and The Bridges of Madison County, both of which became huge hits, and she eventually turned to alcohol as a way of dealing with the pain.
"I suppose there was a feeling of loss," she admitted. "Rheumatoid arthritis hit in my late 30s — the last of my years in which Hollywood would consider me a sexually appealing leading lady. The hardest part was that so much of my confidence was based on my physicality. If I didn't have that, who was I?"
She continued: "The roles for mature women onstage are a thousand times better than anything written in film. That's why, knowing where my career could grow as I got less desirable for the camera, I focused on theater.
"I remember I got sent a screenplay once where the character was described as '37 but still attractive.' That pissed me off. Americans are so screwed up about sex."
It was while dealing with the pain of the condition that Turner was branded with the label of being 'difficult' on set; one she deems very unfair.
"The 'difficult' thing was pure gender crap," she said. "If a man comes on set and says, 'Here's how I see this being done,' people go, 'He's decisive.' If a woman does it, they say, 'Oh, f*ck. There she goes'."
She said her illness was a source of "bad mystery" to press at the time, and one she could not set straight for fear of losing work, lest she be treated less favourably than the likes of Robert Downey Jr.
"Someone like him could show up on set and be drunk or misbehave in some way, but he would still get hired because producers figured they could control that kind of behavior," she said.
"But if you say, 'I have a mysterious illness and I don't know if I'll be able to walk tomorrow' — you're not getting hired. And the only real effective treatment back then was massive doses of steroids, which has massive side effects. If I went to pick up a bottle, for example, I couldn't grip it, and people would assume I was inebriated."
Turner described Donald Trump's handshake as "gross". Photo / Getty Images
Elsewhere in the interview, Turner confirmed she had previously met President Donald Trump, and described in detail his "gross handshake".
"He goes to shake your hand and with his index finger kind of rubs the inside of your wrist," she explained.
"He's trying to do some kind of seductive intimacy move. You pull your hand away and go yuck."
