Jacqueline Bisset embraces humility, style and substance in Hollywood

“I didn’t know if I would be able to. I wasn’t sure I was quite ready,” admitted Jacqueline Bisset.

In independent drama Loren and Rose, which is currently in theaters, she plays a legendary actress trying to revive her career with the help of a promising young filmmaker. As they have built a bond and friendship over a series of meetings at a restaurant in Los Angeles, they open up and form a deep friendship.

“I was scared of the role, but I’m still scared of things,” Bisset explained. “Once we started reading the script out loud, I realized I could do it and I was ready.”

As someone who’s been in the industry for decades, has the iconic actress seen any parallels between herself and Rose?

“I had enough to play it, but I didn’t think of it as a story that belonged to me,” she reflected. “I knew it was well written, and I’m sure a lot of people have lived as long as I have and been in this business for as long as I’ve had the experience of what I’m talking about in the movie.”

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Rose de Bisset is haunted and frustrated by elements of her career, successes and roles that dominate and define her resume, whether she likes it or not, and films that she made and loved but didn’t. never won the audience it feels it deserves. It was something the star of classics such as Bullit And the abyss understood, having his own

“For me, the brother or sister project of Loren and Rose is a film I made in 2001 called The Girl of Sleeping Time. It was a wonderful role,” she enthused. “I’m so proud of this movie. It was directed by Christopher Munch, another young filmmaker who fascinated me. We have become very good friends, and I adore and respect him. He’s also really good friends with Russell Brown, the director of that movie, which is how I came to do that.

“Loren and Rose And The Girl of Sleeping Time are the closest to my best work because they are complete characters, and I didn’t stress my appearance too much. There was a degree of it, and I’m not against looking good because I like it, but the center of my heart is more interesting than the outside.”

However, throughout her career, Bisset was seen as very elegant on and off screen. Her Rose persona has a classic, composed elegance to her. She prefers substantial things that are built to last, both professionally and sartorially.

“Elegance comes from the brain,” she said. “I never buy nonsense. I only buy classic clothes that last, so I don’t have to change them all the time. I rework them a little if I need to. I have a lot wardrobe, and I gave away a lot of clothes, but my basic style is very classic.

“I have a lot of items that are 20, 25 or 30 years old. I love them and I know I can’t find them anymore because fashion has changed and I rarely find things that I like. I don’t spend a lot of time in stores, and I don’t buy anything on the internet.”

Something else Bisset has in common with Rose is a loyal fan base within the LGBTQ+ community. In real life, it wasn’t something she had been aware of for many years.

“I think it started with The grasshopper‘, the actress said, referring to the R-rated 1970 film described as ‘a young woman’s odyssey from innocence to decadence’.

Bisset continued, “That’s when I realized I had this following that I wasn’t aware of before. A lot of people would come up to me and say, ‘Oh, I loved you in The grasshopper‘, and I was like, ‘Really? For what?’ I didn’t know much about the gay community before coming to the United States. It’s been a great fan base. I made another movie called Last days, and it was a big hit in the gay community. He got such a warm response, and it was just lovely.”

Although not a big hit when it landed in theaters in 1983, another of Bisset’s films, Class, became a cult hit that grew in popularity. The dramedy also starred Rob Lowe and Andrew McCarthy, whom she took under her wing and called a “very smart” guy. The class celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.

“I don’t know. I have mixed feelings about the movie. When I originally read it, they had a very different pulse. It was about a woman who was troubled in her marriage. Her husband wasn’t a very nice man, but the actor who got the part refused to play it as it was written, because of that they changed my character’s behavior, making me look like a bimbo , on the street and trying to fuck. I thought to myself, “How can someone else’s work affect me so much?”

She concluded: “I haven’t had a lot of people give me a lot of love for Class, but I’m glad someone liked it. The young boys thought it was cool, so it found an audience.”