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Movies & TV

Susan Sarandon’s loving the changing world of gender

Nothing can stop Hollywood veteran Susan Sarandon from talking a blue streak, not even near pneumonia conditions, thanks to, as she puts it, nearly swallowing the entire desert while attending the Burning Man festival.

Clad in a close-fitting slate gray dress and sipping ginger tea, she expresses – in full paragraphs – her pleasure at being part of About Ray, a movie that sheds light on the transgender experience.

“When I talk to people who express fear about trans people, I always tell them to think about having more crayons in the box,” she says in a raspy voice, plainly struggling. “We used to only have five primary colours, now we have so many more. Sure, there’s masculine and feminism extremes, but there’s so many more possibilities in between.”

In the film, she plays the wisecracking lesbian grandmother of a young teen (Elle Fanning) who wants to make the transition from female to male.

It’s actually the first time she’s played an dyke – kissing Catherine Deneuve in the arty film The Hunger decades ago doesn’t count, though she still has sharp memories of that.

“I still can’t believe they’d originally written that scene with me being drunk,” she says laughing, and then repeats a previous comment that’s become almost iconic. “Who needs to be drunk to want to kiss Catherine Deneuve?”

As for playing a grandmother, she remarks caustically, “I don’t get why everyone sees that as a landmark moment.” In her personal life she’s very happy as the grandmother of a one-year old.

But she keeps returning to the trans theme, expressing dismay that so many people, including the character she plays, confuses gender with sexuality.

“My line is, ‘Why can’t she just be a lesbian?’ and, of course, that’s not the same thing.”

Interesting that she’s seized on the trans issue – “I just hope it opens up an important discussion,” she says – since director Gaby Dellal, in an earlier interview, insisted that About Ray isn’t a trans movie, it’s a film about family.

When Sarandon hears that, she rolls her eyes.

“Really? It’s called About Ray, isn’t it?”

About Ray screens Sunday (September 13), 11:15 am, at TIFF Bell Lightbox 1. See our review here.

susanc@nowtoronto.com | @susangcole

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