She’s a movie star who is highly rated as an actress, yet she’ll do small, interesting films if they have something to say about the human condition.
She’s a 48-year-old sex symbol who’s also a struggling, caring, urban mother of three young children. And she’s quite prepared to be politically active and outspoken when it comes to issues such as human rights and the role of women.
Susan Sarandon is all these things, and that’s what makes her so fascinating and unique.
The current mood among the new Republican majority for rolling back welfare and making it tough on single mothers is not something with which Sarandon is very comfortable, she says. A lot of the simplistic solutions being preached are simply not being thought through, she fears.
In a recent interview she talked about her two new films “Safe Passage” and “Little Women” and about mothers struggling to cope with large families, subjects she has a lot to say about on and off the screen.
“I would like to know who is going to foot the bill if all these kids are put in orphanages. Do they think these women are out there working because they want to be cleaning people’s homes, taking these low-paying jobs. Are they saying that professional women should also stay at home.
“I really don’t think this business of taking children away from single mothers is something they’ve thought through. It’s one of those theoretical things, like the death penalty.
“I think it’s ludicrous that the right, which has won so much power on the idea of family values, doesn’t seem to take into consideration the concern of ordinary families-money for schools and any of the things that would give people options to better their lives and families. It really seems to be a family-values agenda which focuses on being against things, against single women, against women having choice.”
The cynicism toward government-run welfare expressed by a lot of voters in the midterm elections is understandable because many people are feeling frustrated, Sarandon says.
“It’s so hard when both parents are working, and they’ve got nothing to show for it. How can they be expected to be generous to someone else when they themselves don’t have any health care, when they’re worried about the future? Their kids are not upwardly mobile, which is what the American dream used to be.
“It seems a lot were elected on the idea that it’s not your problem-here’s an extra few hundred a year in tax cuts and let everyone else fend for themselves because it’s their fault they are like they are. Of course it’s not true.
“I can only draw hope from the fact that there are many fine organizations trying to help people, trying to protect working mothers and children and the environment that these corporate agendas don’t take into consideration.”
The notion of the perfect American family, the suggestion that there is an orderly and pure norm, is far removed from reality. Haviny a family and at times feeling overwhelmed is OK, Sarandon says.
“Being a parent is about feeling overwhelmed. I think the reason so many people are moved by `Safe Passage’ (in which she plays the mother of seven boys in chaotic houeshold) is it’s a film which says dysfunctional families are OK. This is a family that’s full of individuals, and they’re not the Waltons, but it’s OK.
“I don’t think any parent who takes on a family-I don’t care if it is only one child, or there’s only one parent or same-sex parents-all the different kind of families you can think of-well you always feel overwhelmed. Anyone who doesn’t I really mistrust.
“Maybe we have to look at the goals we have for the family. It’s not about making everyone the same unless you’re going to give everyone Prozac. It’s not about this idea of families we have from the ’50s. Life’s not like that. A mom can be working and still be a real mom, a loving mom.”
A lot of what women have to cope with is dictated by the day-to-day demands of being a mother, Sarandon says. Often this can mean that the woman comes off worse than the father because she has to do all the mundane organizing.
“I know this thing happens where he’s the one who comes home and fools around with the kids and you’re the one who has to give all the orders-`You can’t do that,’ `It’s time for dinner,’ `Go clean up your room.’ You end up being this kind of grouchy, nagging person who can’t let the house go and just go out and play with your kids. The guy ends up being this big boy who doesn’t take any responsibility. I think this ends up being the common dynamic in many families.”
Sarandon and actor Tim Robbins, 35, her longtime companion (they met on the set of “Bull Durham” in 1988) have sons aged 2 and 5, and there also is a 9-year-old daughter from her relationship with Italian director Franco Amurri.
They live in Manhattan and have a retreat in upstate New York. Looking back, Sarandon says her expectations for her family are different from what her mother’s were. To start with, two of Sarandon’s children were born when she was over 40.
“What I want for my kids is different from what my mother was trying for. I didn’t have my kids when I was young; I had a life first. I’m not like the mother in `Safe Passage’ who suddenly wakes up one morning and says, `Where has my life gone? Did I really want this?’ I know people this has happened to.”
Playing Marmee March in the new screen adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s classic “Little Women” she really did for her daughter, Sarandon says. `Safe Passage’ she did because agents told her not to play a woman with seven sons, she says, laughing.
“Whatever my politics, I just hope people can accept me in roles. It’s really hard for me to do some films, which are violent, especially violence against women. You have to have some really great redeeming value to get me to do it because I really don`t want to put that out there. It’s about who I am and how I have to explain to my kids what the movie’s about.
“My daughter got in a fight once because someone called me a movie star and she said I wasn’t, I was an actor. I thought that was fabulous.”
With her children, Sarandon says she is pleased that they have the opportunity to mix with a variety of people because of the nature of film work.
“My kids are lucky. They see people who are nongender, they go on movie sets where people are clearly different, different color, different everything. That’s one thing I have been able to give them-diversity.”
Living amid the diversity of Manhattan adds to this, she says.
“That’s why I live in the city. I don’t think I’m good enough to be vigilant. If we were living in a very upper-class, white environment, for all the material pluses, I don’t think I could deal with the stereotypes.
“Then you’ve got television, which puts out a lot of what you don’t want to teach your children. My kids have other problems: Trying to get them to do what they are supposed to for their allowances is impossible. They’ve also been taught to question authority, which of course completely backfires because you’re the person in authority they question.”
The influence of peer pressure is something she says she has tried to talk about with her daughter. Standing out from the crowd over things you feel are important is something Sarandon knows first hand.
“I had a very interesting conversation with my daughter and her friend about it: how to deal with wanting to stand up for something you know is right but not wanting to have other kids turn against you. It’s a universal thing. It`s was interesting because my daughter is very spunky, but clearly she doesn’t know how to deal with that. I said you have to figure it out for yourself.
“This is what your whole life is going to be about-having the courage of your convictions in big and little ways. I know what it costs to try and take a stand which is not popular. It’s hard.
“My daughter’s always been so popular. It may be different if she was a kid who was kinda weird and on the outside. But she’s in the center of things, and the arena she plays it out in is big and obvious. She plays soccer and baseball, and the school is very supportive in their values, but look at the world we are in!”
As far as her own activism is concerned, Sarandon says she’s not as active as she used to be.
“I’m still on the board of the Creative Coalition, and I’m doing some stuff. I think anyone who tries to be a protagonist in their own life is making a political statement. I’m careful of things which have a message because it makes me seem so boring. But in hindsight, when I look at things, I realize there is always some kind of politics involved.”
