Gina Gershon: “I Go by My Gut!”

GERSHON HAS what may be the world’s best answer to the question, What was the first album you bought?

“I remember the first album I stole,” she says with a grin. “Led Zeppelin IV. I think back and I’m like, ‘How did I have the balls to steal an album?’ ”

Doing anything for a piece of great music is the kind of behavior you’d expect from Jacki, the character Gershon plays in September’s Prey for Rock and Roll. The film details an all-female band’s crawl through the abusive gutters of L.A. rock. It’s powered by the bruised and ballsy Jacki, who as she turns 40 is confronting the fact that she hasn’t broken big.

Gershon’s own age is something of a mystery. She could easily pass for a woman in her late twenties but is actually in her forties. When asked her age, the usually direct actress becomes vague.“Last year, the Internet said I was 26,” she complains. “I’m not fucking 26! Then 53, and I got mad. Then all of a sudden I was 43 and I said, ‘OK, whatever.’ ”

The Los Angeles–born Gershon scored her first notable film role in Pretty in Pink. She has since balanced mainstream movies The Insider and Face/Off (and Cabaret on Broadway) with sexy roles in Showgirls and Bound. “I go by my gut,” she says with a shrug. “If I like it, I do it.”

Right now Gershon’s gut appears to be failing her. She is visibly troubled by Blender’s request that she pick 10 albums.

“I really want 20,” she laments. “It’s like being allowed to invite only three friends to a party – it feels like I’m fucking someone over.”

David Bowie, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
Virgin, 1972
“For my poetry class in high school, everyone brought in Yeats and Robert Frost. I brought [lyrics to] ‘Rock & Roll Suicide’ as my poem. The teacher thought it was really interesting. He said, ‘It has this vampiric quality.’ I thought he would kill me, but he was into it.”


Elvis Costello, Imperial Bedroom
Rykodisc, 1982
“My sister made me go to his concert. I had a test the next day. I was like, ‘Elvis who? I thought he was dead.’ I sat there with my mouth hanging open. Who gives a shit about a test? I totally fell in love with him. I have seen him in concert more than I have anyone else. I feel like I’ve grown up with him.”


Joni Mitchell, Blue
Reprise, 1971
“When I lived with my boyfriend, this seemed to be on a lot. It’s a perfect Sunday album when you’re reading the paper or making eggs. It’s very calming, very familiar. Also, it’s a good album when I’m in a melancholy mood and slightly depressed. It makes me feel a little bit better without being too aggressive.”


Annie Lennox, Diva
Arista, 1992
“That song ‘Why’ just kills me. If I have to do a sad scene, I’ll put that on. I hear it and I immediately know I’m going to go someplace else. Anyone who’s had a really sad breakup can relate to it. Annie is a friend of mine, and we have a lot of similarities when it comes to relationships, unfortunately.”


Jimi Hendrix, Are You Experienced
MCA, 1967
“I was 13 or 14. I used to go over to my best friend’s house, and we would smoke pot and listen to this. This is the first time I really felt a guitar be a character. It had a personality that was trying to express all the things I didn’t know how to. It made me aware that to open up, you don’t have to be so literal.”


Tom Waits, Frank's Wild Years
Island, 1987
“If I have to go do a really sexy scene, or I have to get myself in a certain mood, like a little bit of aggressive sexy, I’ll listen to ‘Temptation.’ It’s just so wild and raw. If I have to go to a party and I want to be, you know, in cruise mode, I’ll listen to that song.”


The Beatles, Abbey Road
Capitol, 1969
“The Beatles were always there. I had Yellow Submarine sheets on my bed. When I was doing Cabaret, I asked different people, ‘How do you warm up your voice?’ Beck told me, ‘I sing really loud.’ I said, ‘Like the Beatles.’ He made me a couple of tapes. When I got sick of my warm-up tapes, I’d sing this a lot.”


Janis Joplin, Janis Joplin's Greatest Hits
Columbia/Legacy, 1973
“ “My dad loved ‘Me and Bobbie McGee,’ so I had an attachment to that song growing up. Also, I had an older sister who dressed like her, so I always thought, ‘Ooh, that’s cool.’ You can’t not be emotionally affected by the way she sings. When I sing, I think, ‘God, I wanna have that connection.’”


Earth, Wind & Fire, The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire, Vol. 1
Columbia/Legacy, 1978
“My best friend and I would go home from school, put on Earth, Wind & Fire and make up dances. They were one of my first concerts. My uncle, who was a musician, took me. They came out of pyramids. They were awesome, really hot. You gotta add a little funk to the mix.”


The Clash, London Calling
Epic, 1979
“When I lived with this guy in college, we used to wake up and crank London Calling at 8 in the morning before we would go to school. He would do his push-ups and I would make food. It’s like an instant B-12 shot as soon as you wake up. I think our neighbors were annoyed with us.”