Guinevere Turner on Writing, Directing, and Acting
Guinevere Turner
In this profile series, Revry is highlighting authentic contributors to the LGBTQ media and entertainment community. We ask questions to find out who they are and where they are going in the future. The questions remain the same but the answers tell their unique story. It’s time to explore and celebrate true representation beyond the limits of Hollywood.
Guinevere Turner is a writer, director and actor who has been working in film and TV since her 1994 debut film GO FISH, which she wrote, produced and starred in. She teamed up with director Mary Harron to write the films AMERICAN PSYCHO, The NOTORIOUS BETTIE PAGE and the 2019 film CHARLIE SAYS. She was a writer and story editor on Showtime’s THE L WORD, and she played a recurring character on that show. She has written and directed seven short films, two of which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. She can be seen in roles that include THE WATERMELON WOMAN, CHASING AMY, AMERICAN PSYCHO AND THE L WORD. Her latest screenplay, CHARLIE SAYS, was directed by Mary Harron and opened in theaters and on digital platforms in May of 2019. Guinevere has taught screenwriting at Sarah Lawrence College, Columbia University, University of Georgia, UCLA and NYU. She published an essay in The New Yorker in April of 2019, and is expanding on that essay in a memoir in 2022.
What are you best known for?
What I am best known for depends on who you are. If you are a lesbian my age, it's my film GO FISH. If you are a younger lesbian, it's THE L WORD. If you are a bro, it's AMERICAN PSYCHO. If you are a nerdy bro, it's the Kevin Smith films I am in. If you are in the BDSM/kink community in the UK, there’s a film I acted in called PREACHING TO THE PERVERTED, relatively unknown here. I love that I get to do all of these things.
What is the first thing you worked on?
The first thing I did was my film GO FISH, which I wrote/produced/acted in. It came out in 1994 and went to Sundance and it was a whole amazing and quite unexpected whirlwind that started the whole career thing. We made that film because we were disappointed in lesbian representation at the time, but it ended up starting off our (me and director Rose Troche's) journey through working in film and television.
What are you working on that no one knows about yet?
I'm working on a bunch of things, naturally! Raising money for a horror film I wrote, to star me, developing a TV show about cult deprogrammers, finishing a book about my unusual childhood (that was due two months ago!). Those are the main things taking up my time at the moment.