May 08 - G3 Magazine

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INTERVIEW BY LINDA RILEY | MAIN PHOTOGRAPH BY CARLO ALLEGRI/GETTY IMAGES
����MODEL
2008
What are we
supposed to do, ““… not
have hot sex
scenes… ?
g3 How did the whole The L-Word thing start?
Rose Troche directed the pilot and then suggested
to me that I should consider writing on the show
too. Initially, I just thought, “Is this where we are, 10
years later, writing ‘The Lesbian Show’?”. But Rose
said “This show is going to exist whether we work
on it or not, and it’s really going to make or break
people’s perception of lesbians”, and eventually
I agreed. I worked on the show for two years, and
got to play a recurring character.
g3 Did you think the show would turn out to be
such a success?
We knew that some lesbians would watch it, just
because there isn’t much to watch, lesbian-wise, in
fi lm or TV. However, we had no idea it would get the
mainstream, international attention it got!
g3 Was it hard to know how far to take the sex
scenes, so that you weren’t attracting the whole
male soft porn audience?
Well, what are we supposed to do, not have hot
sex scenes, on the off-chance that some guy’s
spanking it in the corner? If someone’s watching it
just to see two women having sex, they’re gonna
have to sit through an awful lot of talking. They
could just get porn.
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Interview
Guinevere Turner
actress, writer and our
RoleMODEL 2008 guest judge
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g3 A lot of lesbians watch the show and really
identify with the storylines, don’t they?
Someone recently told me, in fact, that her friend
said “I’m never telling anyone anything again
because every time I do it ends up on The L-Word.”
And I said “Tell your friend she’s just not that
different to anyone else!”
g3 Who came up with the incestuality chart?
I was with Angela Roberts (another script-writer)
during the fi rst week of the show. We had all these
whiteboards everywhere and we were bored. So I
said “I bet if we did a chart showing who has had sex
with who, we could connect you and I.” Eventually
Eileen, the creator of the show came in, and then
Leisha Hayley… By the time we’d fi nished, it
covered four walls, and Angelina Jolie was on it,
and Ellen, and Jodie Foster…
g3 So do all lesbians make incestuality charts?
Because there’s a big rumour that it started in a
club in London…
Well, I’ve been doing it since I was in college. I think
it’s kind of a zeitgeist thing – we all realise that
lesbians before us, and separately to us, might have
done it too. I’m just the one who put it on TV!
g3 You started out with the fi lm Go Fish, which
became a real cult classic amongst lesbians. Did
you ever think you’d come this far?
If you’d told me then that Rose and I would end up
working on a really popular lesbian TV show which
would get as far as a fi fth season, I would’ve been
amazed. Before Go Fish, people were asking things
like “How do lesbians have sex?”.
g3 What are you working on at the moment?
I’m writing a TV show about stalkers. It’s not a
lesbian show, but the craziest story in it is a lesbian
story! I’ve also just directed a few short fi lms. Oh,
and Rose and I are working on Go Fish 2!
g3 Any idea how that may be different to the
original fi lm?
It plays with the idea of how sweet and innocent
and lovely we were then, and how bitter and twisted
we are now!
g3 When will it be out?
We’re just writing it now. We have no idea when it
will be out. I have to say though, every time I
mention it to the lesbian press, they are all
incredibly excited!
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