The pioneering actress looks back at her lengthy career, including the early days as a blaxploitation icon and her work with Quentin Tarantino
I started doing the films that they would call exploitative, which was basically action and adult films—adult films that have crime like any other shoot ’em up with male leads. I just was doing them for tuition. I wasn’t a serious actor at all. I wasn’t looking to have a career in film in front of the camera. That just wasn’t my ambition at the time.
I was 16 and broke with a tuition and I didn’t have a clue. As I was reading and studying as a good student, eventually getting into film school, I was developing an audience of who would see a woman in action who could perform martial arts, who could perform stunts, and who walked in a man’s shoes, held a gun, used profanity, pinched the guys. But it would be a huge examination of the audience and where we’re going in filmmaking.
AVC: You talk about acting at first to get money for tuition. Was there a moment that you transitioned from that, when you felt like a legitimate actress, like you were giving multi-dimensional performances.. When you have rehearsal and you’re relating to things that are extremely horrific, and the women in Jack Hills films, they were sometimes camp comedy—people didn’t believe women fought and studied martial arts.
AVC: You have an inextricable history with Jack Hill. Who are some of the other people you enjoyed working with?PG: Well, Paul Newman, Sid Haig, Philip Michael Thomas, Don Johnson, Samuel Jackson, Robert DeNiro, Bridget Fonda. There’s just so many. And I haven’t finished yet because it seems like I’m turning the page and becoming like a 19 year old or something. I just got off of a film with Damon Wayans, who’s just insanely brilliant. And I just did awith Henry Thomas, and he’s a grown man.
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