Interview

Heather Graham is sexier (and smarter) than you remember.

Heather Graham’s directorial debut encourages women to embrace their sexuality.

I n her new film, Half Magic— which she wrote and directed— Heather Graham plays a woman striving to become a writer in Hollywood who is waking up to the fact that her industry, and society in general, isn’t equal gender-wise. This is not exactly a new message, but it’s an interesting one coming from Graham, an actress who in the late 1990s and early aughts was mostly famous as a sex symbol for the Maxim set. (Or maybe that’s just how I remember her, since I was the target market for that magazine.) Of course, it’s not that women can’t be both woke and sexy, but it is noteworthy that the seismic shift in awareness about sexual misconduct among powerful men has been led, in a lot of ways, by women of Graham’s generation: actresses like Rose McGowan, Ashley Judd and Alyssa Milano. It’s as if, now in their mid- to late 40s, they’re more ready to share different stories and opinions than they were 10 to 20 years ago. (Or maybe it’s that we’re all more ready to listen.) The story Graham tells in Half Magic isn’t harsh, though. Quite the opposite, actually. It’s a celebration of women embracing their sexuality after decades of having it dictated to them by men. It turns out that Graham is still a sex symbol—she just symbolizes something more nuanced and empowering now. “There are people who think we are coming into the age of the divine feminine,” she says, “and that life is going to become more balanced between the masculine and feminine and that it is going to be more peaceful. Maybe that’s true. It sounds hopeful.”

It’s sad to say, but you couldn’t have picked a better time to release this movie.

“I know, I know. All these people who read the script a few years ago are like, ‘Wow, your movie is really timely right now.’”

Given some of the reports, it’s been timely forever, though.

“Well, sexual harassment, and sexism generally, has been going on probably since movies started—and it has probably been in every business forever. But at least now people are finally saying ‘This is not good.’ I’m not saying that every person is like that. For the most part, people are really nice. But there are a lot of creepy people. And a lot of creepy guys are drawn to the power and glamour of the movie business. Luckily, people in Hollywood have a platform to talk about this stuff. If Harvey Weinstein’s harassing people, we can go to the press—and that’s something. But what happens to the woman in a diner when her boss is harassing her? I think we are lucky that we have a platform and that public opinion has finally turned against that kind of behaviour.”

It’s not even a question of always being overtly abusive or harassing. Your film also shows how dismissive the industry can be of women—not to mention the weird sexual politics of horror movies, for example, where if you have sex, you’re going to be punished.

“There are many levels of sexism that are still out there. I mean, luckily, people are saying ‘Yeah, you shouldn’t rape people. And you shouldn’t sexually harass people.’ But there are other kinds of sexism, like not making a lot of movies about women and not having a lot of female directors. If you look at the research from the Geena Davis Institute, there’s data that compares the percentage of female roles to male roles in movies, and it’s very skewed against women. And if you look at the percentage of female directors in the film business, only, like, seven per cent of the top 250 films were directed by women.” Your character in the film was raised in a pretty conservative religion. One of the things that seems insidious to me about religion and sex is the idea that men obviously like sex, so there is this sort of condoning of “Boys will be boys; it’s a sin, but we understand that you have urges.” But then, for women, we are taught “No, women are pure.” “I feel that women are taught ‘You are not supposed to enjoy sex, and the only reason you’re supposed to have sex is to have a child. And then if you ever do have sex, it’s just to sort of humour your husband.’ [Laughs] It’s not like, ‘Oh, you want to have sex. It feels good to you, and you like sex.’”

Was that something you had to realize yourself, or was it something that you knew from an early age?

“Well, growing up in a religion did not help. It’s really a double standard. There’s this cultural conditioning that it’s normal for men to want sex but women aren’t supposed to like it. “Then, when you get married, it’s like, ‘OK, well, have a happy sex life’—even though women aren’t supposed to enjoy it. I think that as a woman, sometimes you feel a bit guilty breaking those stereotypical expectations. Like, if you don’t have kids, is that bad? If you like sex, is that bad? If you don’t want to get married, same thing. Being a modern woman in the world is saying ‘I don’t want to live up to these conventional ways of being’ and detaching from that programming. And then, if you’re very religious or spiritual, it is saying ‘God gave us our sexuality for a reason, so aren’t we supposed to enjoy it?’ I had to go on a journey of my own through therapy. I took female empowerment classes, too, because I used to think I was just supposed to please the guy. And it seemed like guys understood their bodies at a younger age. It took me a long time before I really figured out what I like, because I was so caught up in people pleasing. I think before that I just thought ‘Oh, this is kind of my power as a woman, and I want to use it to be desirable.’ But I don’t know if I was really enjoying it. And then I think I reached a point where I really was enjoying it. Why was I not taught that I could enjoy it?”

Beauty is this double-edged sword where you have to be attractive to be noticed, but then if you’re too attractive, people make the assumption that you’re not smart.

“Yes. On the one hand, you’re like, ‘OK, I’m getting work because I’m attractive. I want to get work, so I want to be attractive.’ But then people are just seeing you as ‘Oh, you’re blond and have big boobs so you must be stupid—because everyone who is blond and has big boobs must be stupid.’ So if you’re a happy blond person with big boobs, people tend to think ‘Oh, you’re dumb.’”

Is that something that you struggled with? Like, did you ever wish you weren’t attractive—or as happy? How do you feel about being a sex symbol, especially earlier in your career?

“Well, to be honest, when I was in high school, I was not attractive. I was super-nerdy and very smart. I have a high IQ, and I got put in all the Advanced Placement classes—I even wore neck gear at a certain point. I looked at the pretty girls and was so jealous. I wanted to be like them and get the guys’ attention. And then I did. And I thought: ‘Wait! I’m really just this nerdy, smart kid inside, but now nobody sees that.’ At a certain point, I missed being my smart self, although it was still kind of fun being a sex symbol, if I’m being honest. But there’s another aspect where people put a lot of anger about sexuality on women.”

Since there are so few women directors, were you able to model what kind of director you wanted to be after other female directors?

“It’s not necessarily that working with women and men is that different. It’s more the stories they tell and the way they tell them that are different. As an audience member, I miss seeing more of a female perspective and seeing stories told about women that I can relate to. Also, I think so many movies are depressing; I just wanted to make a movie that would be uplifting and empowering to women.”

‘Oh, you’re blond and have big boobs so you must be stupid—because everyone who is blond and has big boobs must be stupid.’