Actress Rose McGowan prepares for Edinburgh show set in her childhood world | Ents & Arts News


Rose McGowan

Hollywood actress Rose McGowan will take Edinburgh Festival Fringe audiences to a “freer place” with a show set in the imaginary world she escaped to as a child.

Sky News was granted exclusive access to see McGowan rehearse some of the music and poetry she will be performing in Planet 9, a cross between performance art and an intimate gig.

She hopes audiences will have a visceral reaction.

She said: “When I was 10 years old I got sent from Italy to America and I had such a bad reaction to it, I created my own planet.

“We can all go to a better, freer place in our minds, we don’t have to stay so earthbound in our thoughts.

“You know it’s really just about realising that we can shut our eyes and escape at any time.”









Rose McGowan urges politicians to do more on climate change

Over the last few years, McGowan has had little choice but to reinvent herself.

She was one of the first who dared to speak out about disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein and it was a decision, she claims, which put paid to her movie career and led to her being blacklisted by Hollywood.

Artist/Activist/Executive producer Rose McGowan of 'Citizen Rose' on E! speaks onstage during the NBCUniversal portion of the 2018 Winter Television Critics Association Press Tour at The Langham Huntington, Pasadena on January 9, 2018
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McGowan’s name has come to be inextricably linked to Weinstein

But there’s a lot more to the actress than the #MeToo movement – she hopes the show will get people thinking about the fate of our planet.

“I’ve always felt really connected to trees, nature, and I just hope we do what’s right for it because we are really running out of time.”

It isn’t hard to see why McGowan would, at times, want to escape this planet, given how her name has come to be inextricably linked to Weinstein.

She claims he raped her at a film festival in 1997 – allegations he continues to deny ahead of his trial next month on unrelated rape and sexual harassment charges which he also denies.

Rose McGowan rehearsing her new show Planet 9
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McGowan is rehearsing her new show Planet 9 for Edinburgh Festival Fringe

“You know, I had to make peace with the fact that that monster’s name is going to be in my obituary,” she said.

“But I had to do it for the greater good and so I took the hit, and I’m not the only one that has that feeling when they hear his name.”

Ahead of the trial she says she feels “cautiously optimistic”.

“My heart breaks and I send all of my strength to the women who are going to be testifying because it’s going to be really hard.”

After two decades of feeling isolated and ignored, it is a strange reversal of fortunes that the actress, artist and survivor now finds that world is waiting to know what she will say or do next.

“You know, society had an awful lot of thoughts for me, now I have some thoughts for them. Funny how that works.”

:: Rose McGowan: Planet 9 is at Assembly Hall on 15-18 August


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