She terrified us in The Fly and Beetlejuice, made us laugh and cry in A League of Their Own and pretty much defined an era in Thelma & Louise. Geena Davis has spent decades building one of Hollywood’s most iconic and wide-ranging careers—and now she’s back with one of the most buzzed-about projects of the year. Welcome to The Boroughs, the supernatural mystery series from the masterminds behind Stranger Things, the Duffer Brothers, which premiered on Netflix on May 21 and is currently claiming the number-one spot on the streaming service.
But Davis’s impact has never been confined to her performances alone. As the founder of the Geena Davis Institute, she has spent years pushing Hollywood to tell more authentic, inclusive stories—work that earned the Institute the Television Academy’s Board of Governors Award in 2022. She co-founded the Bentonville Film Festival to champion underrepresented voices, produced the award-winning documentary This Changes Everything and most recently opened up about her own life in her bestselling memoir, Dying of Politeness. Oh, and she received her honorary Oscar, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award (because of course she did).
We caught up with Davis to talk about The Boroughs, why age is just a number and the data that’s actually changing Hollywood.
What was it like when you got the call to play Renee?
“I immediately thought, ‘Oh my God, this is perfect for me. It’s like it was written for me.’ And then, I heard that they had me in mind when they were creating it. I loved it. When I accepted it, I had only read the pilot, but I was immediately saying, ‘Oh, yes, this is for me. I’m doing this.’”
What was the most fun part about playing her? I know there’s a lot going on in the show, but she’s just so cool and free-spirited.
“That’s exactly what I loved. I aspire to be like Renee. I haven’t gotten there in my real life yet—maybe one day! I love that character. She just does what she wants, thinks what she wants and says what she wants. I really admire that.”
Her character is part of a bigger community—hence the show’s name—and you really are a gang of unlikely heroes. How did it feel to play these strong characters? Does it all mean something bigger for how society views age?
“I loved that about it. I love that there’s no question that—although we’re all around 70—there isn’t anything we can’t do. We’re very capable. We have good teamwork. We come up with solutions. We take it into our hands—we don’t reach out to anybody else to solve this problem or enlist other people in helping. We feel competent and capable of figuring it out ourselves.”
I love that. Is that the message you hope you are giving in your personal life—to fans and women in general?
“Yes, and I think it is a good message. From my own personal experience, every time I start a new decade, I have had a little trepidation about what it might be like. And then that all proves to be completely unfounded. I always say, ‘I’m still me.’ It’s not like you’ve turned into somebody else when you get to a certain age or a certain decade. I still feel exactly like I did when I was younger.
My dad was in the hospital when he was 95, and I noticed that the nurses spoke really loudly to him and seemed very condescending when they talked to him. I guess they assumed that if he’s that old, he can’t quite understand everything or something. It drove me nuts. I finally asked: ‘Dad, do you feel like this old guy? Is that what you feel like?’ And he said, ‘No, not for a second. I feel like I did when I was 30. I’m exactly the same.’ It’s proved to be the case in my life as well.”
Thank you for sharing that. You’ve been doing the press and the flights and the Cannes circuit. How do you feel your best when the schedule is so hectic?
“I’m a little bit of a freak in that I don’t get jet lag. It’s really unfair that I get to escape the effects of jet lag. Maybe someday I will, but it’s a breeze for me. I don’t do anything special to prepare myself or to make sure I get through it okay. I just go with the flow.”
Are there any skin-care products that you like to use, or anything wellness-wise that helps keep you on track?
“You know what? I don’t do anything for skin care! But I’ve been a sucker for buying some products I’ve seen on TikTok! If I hear that something is anti-aging or will make my skin better, I buy it—but then I never use it! I have a whole display of these bottles on the counter in my bathroom, but I don’t really use any of them. Thank God I can get away with it because it would be really bad if I didn’t do things that would help me out if I really needed it. It’s not fair, but I get by fairly well.”
Well, you have beautiful skin. Whatever you’re doing is working.
“I’m firmly convinced that part of it is that I don’t take the sun. I always have sunblock on. It’s been that way since I was 22 or something. Back then, I just decided I was going to wear sunblock every day, and I stuck to that. I also never got a tan as a kid; I had to avoid the sun or I would burn. I learned that early on. So, I think that really saved me a lot of problems with my skin. I’ve avoided the sun forever.”
Very smart. Part of your career is also pushing for representation on screen. Do you think it has gotten better, and where do you think it still needs to go?
“The good thing is that what I do involves data, so I know the answers to those questions. It’s not what I think. So many times, people jump to conclusions. For example, when Thelma & Louise came out, whatever the reviewer or whoever thought about the movie, they would all say, ‘This will change everything. There are going to be so many female-led movies now!’ Of course, I was like, ‘Hot dog, I can’t wait!’ Unfortunately, the reality turned out to be a bit different.
My institute, which I, embarrassingly, named after myself, is called the Geena Davis Institute, and it researches the images on screen. It’s been 21 years, and we’re still going. We started out focusing mostly on gender. Now, we have six categories we look at: race and ethnicity, body type, age, disability, LGBTQ—all different things. We have data on what’s improving, what’s changing and what’s not. We are doing better in gender. It has improved very much since we started all that time ago. For kids’ movies and kids’ television, we’re pretty much now at parity with the male and female characters. And we’re doing quite well with characters of color, but the other categories are just abysmal representation.
That’s what we do. We do this research and share it directly with creators, rather than trying to educate the public or anything. Since I know everybody in the industry, we just go directly to them in a very supportive and friendly way. It’s been great. And I can say it’s really working.”
Now that the show is out, and you’re wrapping up the press and the travel for it, will you get to take some time off from work this summer?
“Actually, I’m off to shoot a movie. It hasn’t been announced yet, so I can’t mention the name. Then, hopefully, in the fall, I’ll be going back to shoot the second season of The Boroughs. Fingers crossed!”
