A towering challenge for Gershon
RELIVING 9/11 for an upcoming movie was a harrowing experience, says Gina Gershon –to the point where it made her physically ill. Gershon stars alongside Charlie Sheen and Whoopi Goldberg in “Nine Eleven,” an indie film about a group of people trapped in a North Tower elevator during the attack.
“It was pretty intense,” reports the actress, who lives “about eight blocks away” from the Trade Center site.
“I thought enough time had gone by,” she said, speaking at the One Night One Drop charity event at the New York-New York hotel in Las Vegas. “But I have to say when I was in it, I was nauseous. I was literally getting a lot of anxiety and a lot of those old feelings started coming back. You know you’re acting, but going back into that mind-set – it was a little too close.” So why put herself through the ordeal? “It’s important to remember it, and enough time has gone that some people are like, ‘Wait, what? 9/11?’” said Gershon, who plays the estranged wife of a billionaire businessman (Sheen), who gets stuck on the elevator with a crew that includes a bike messenger, an executive and a maintenance worker.
“I liked the script and I just felt, as a New Yorker, I wanted to do it.”
Gershon herself wasn’t actually in the city during 9/11 – when the planes hit she was in Toronto at a film festival.
“I knew I was a real New Yorker then, because I just felt I need to go and help in any way I could,” she said. “They wouldn’t let me go back to New York, and then I got to L.A. and everyone was like, ‘Aren’t you glad you’re here?’ and I’m like, ‘No, I really want to go back.’ Eventually I got back and I was able to get to Ground Zero and help.”
With shooting on the movie finished, Gershon’s appearing in something a little more lighthearted: the Fox cop comedy “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” She’ll be a regular guest star, playing the sergeant running an elite task force in the upcoming season, which kicks off next month.