Date of Birth
10 June 1962,
Los Angeles, California, USA
Gina L. Gershon
Height
5' 5¾" (1.67 m)
Trivia
Declined to recreate the Sharon Stone leg crossing scene for director Paul Verhoeven in the movie Showgirls (1995).
Was a California Valley Girl, moved to New York and tried to change her image.
BFA in Drama - New York University, Tisch School of the Arts (1983)
She is a founding member of the New York based theatre group, Naked Angels.
When She was a little girl, she almost drowned looking for starfish on the beach.
Her ethnic background is French, Russian, and Dutch.
She is the youngest of 5 children.
Attended high school with Lenny Kravitz.
Played Lenny Kravitz's girlfriend in his video for "Again". [2001]
Before transferring to NYU, She attended Emerson College in Boston, alma mater of Henry Winkler and Jay Leno.
Appeared in the 1984 video for Hello Again by The Cars.
Recently sang with ex-Guns N' Roses members Slash, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum at the Sundance Festival (Jan 21st 2003).
Was born on the same day as actor Vincent Perez.
Actress Helen Slater is one of her friends; She helped her found The Naked Angels.
Sister of Tracy Gershon, who is a judge on "Nashville Star" (2003) on the USA Network.
Recently said that She would love to run Playboy Magazine. she had offered to do a pictoral for them, but was disappointed with how Playboy wanted her to pose and withdrew her offer. When asked what she'd like to see done differently, she said that the magazine should return to a "hip 70s style".
Co-wrote songs with Linda Perry for Prey for Rock & Roll (2003).
Attended Beverly Hills High School; the same school as Angelina Jolie, Michael Klesic, Nicolas Cage, Lenny Kravitz, David Schwimmer, Jonathan Silverman, Rhonda Fleming, Jackie Cooper, Rob Reiner, Bahar Soomekh, Antonio Sabato Jr., Pauly Shore, Michael Tolkin, Betty White, Corbin Bernsen, Elizabeth Daily, Albert Brooks, and Crispin Glover.
She graduated Beverly Hills High School in 1980. While there, she starred in a production of "The Music Man".
Her last Name was misspelled as "Gersohn" on her birth certificate.
The look of Electra Ovilo, a character from Kaubôi bibappu: Tengoku no tobira (2001) is based on her.
Sister of Dann Gershon.
Niece of Jack Elliott.
Cousin of Alan Elliott.
Her favorite movies that She's been in are Bound (1996) and The Player (1992).
[On Showgirls (1995)] "I decided to make my part campy because I initially thought that it was going to be really dark and really intense and then it just turned out to be completely different. So instead of going in that direction, I decided to make it so that drag queens would want to dress as my character on Halloween".
All I wanted to do was play "Conrad Birdie"; I really wanted to be like the Elvis Presley guy, and they ended up giving me the lead, "Rosie".
All my roles are different parts of my personality. Hannah is the caretaker part of me, the psychologist in Prague Duet (1998) ... is the part of me that's always analyzing, Guinevere's Billie is the artistic side.
Being the control freak that I am, I want to know everything beforehand. At this point I'm just going along for the ride.
A lot of my friends are struggling musicians. Being a struggling actor, it's just frustrating because you're not allowed to do what you want to do
Actresses are nightmares. I don't hang out with any of them. That's a problem with my profession. I try not to be like an actress.
I'm just nervous and anxious all the time - I drink too much coffee. But you know, everything can be solved with a bottle; the bottle is a universal cure-all - and not just a booze bottle, any bottle. You break up with your boyfriend, you get a bottle of peroxide. You get sad, you have a drink. Need to sleep? Get a bottle of pills. Baby needs to be calmed down? Give it a bottle. There are genies in bottles.
Showgirls (1995) was a great lesson in power. People would come up to me - like smarmy guys usually saying, 'So, you're doing Showgirls,' and they'd kind of look me over. And I would look them dead in the eye and go, 'Yeah. I run around naked in it and I kiss beautiful girls - it's great.' And they would visibly shrink away because I didn't back down. They were trying to have control over me, but as long as you're proud of what you're doing, and say so, people can't fuck with you, they'll respect you for your choices. If you act embarrassed, then you know you shouldn't be doing whatever it is.
Where Are They Now
(April 2004) Guest-starring on "The Practice" (1997).
(2007) Release of the book, "Camp Creepy time" by Gina and her older brother, Dann Gershon.
