Welcome back to Hot Takes and Deep Dives.

This is Jess and, you know, the words gay icon get thrown around very liberally these days.

And in the galaxy of quote-unquote gay icons, I challenge you to find someone as uniquely talented and genuinely compelling as Gina Gershon, a 90s icon with bound and showgirls, the 2000s on Broadway and cabaret,

to appearances on curbian enthusiasm, playing Donatella Versace, and of course your impressions of Sarah Palin, Melania Trump.

Guys, please welcome to the stage Gina Gershon.

Hello.

How are you?

I'm okay, Jess. How are you doing?

Thank you so much for doing this.

Well, it's my friend.

You were a huge influence on me growing up, you know, as a young kid in New York City, your movies, have really been sort of like the theater to my life.

You know, and sort of like feeling comfortable in who I was when there really was not a lot of representation in the early 90s.

So I want to talk about, I guess just to jump off since, you know, in the intro is mentioning bound and showgirls.

How does it land on you when I refer you as a gay icon?

You know, I guess I've heard that term quite a bit.

You have to understand it's like when I did showgirls but more importantly bound, you know, when I took that role, my representatives basically said I would ruin my career if I took this part because it was a lesbian.

And I thought, hey, you know, that was just not a good enough reason not to do it.

I thought that was wrong and also I just loved the project so much.

But I hated the idea that I would ruin my career by playing a lesbian. I thought it was absolutely ridiculous.

And, you know, really just as an actress, I approached the role because I loved it and I loved what it was about.

But the repercussions of it and what happened afterwards, I felt really proud of the work that we all did.

And I was really happy that it really helped a lot of so many young women who were trying to come out.

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