The Big Picture

Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon recently sat down to discuss their iconic roles in the 1996 film Bound, directed by the Wachowski sisters, to celebrate the Criterion release.
Both Tilly and Gershon expressed their pride in being a part of a film that has become an important piece of the LGBTQ+ community.
While there have been discussions about a sequel to
Bound
, both Tilly and Gershon are hesitant, feeling that the original film is complete and it’s better to let fans imagine the characters’ future.

Anyone in the LGBTQ+ community will tell you that we keep celebrating our queerness all year long, but as pride month comes to a close, I’d like to direct your attention to an incredible piece of lesbian cinema. Nearly 30 years ago, Lana and Lilly Wachowski made history with their directorial debut, Bound. Now, the queer noir thriller has officially taken its rightful place in the revered Criterion Collection with a stunning new physical release. To celebrate Bound’s entry into the collection, I sat down with stars Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly to discuss the making of the iconic film and reflect on its impact as it continues to find new audiences.

During my conversations with Gershon and Tilly, they both spoke about what an honor it is to be part of a movie that means so much to the queer community. Gershon also spoke about portraying the softer side of Corky, an alternate take of the sex scene, and her upcoming role as Mad Moxxi in Eli Roth’s Borderlands adaptation. Meanwhile, Tilly shared some really fun behind the scenes stories while chatting about her chemistry with Gina, how the Wachowski’s committed to such a clear vision for Bound from the beginning, and how she regards Violet as “one of her best performances ever.”

Bound Bound follows Corky, an ex-con working on a renovation in a Chicago apartment building. She meets Violet, the girlfriend of Caesar, a paranoid mobster. Violet and Corky become lovers and plot to steal $2 million from Caesar. Their plan spirals into a tense and violent struggle as they navigate a web of deception and danger to secure their freedom and start a new life togetherRelease Date October 4, 1996 Runtime 109 Minutes Expand

Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly Are Proud To Have Delivered Positive Lesbian Representation in ‘Bound’
Having only seen Bound for the first time last year, I was genuinely impressed with how fresh it still feels over two decades after it first hit cinemas. While lesbian movies are certainly gaining popularity, and indie films have more power to tell queer stories now, Bound’s explicitly happy ending and now-mainstream appeal both still feel rare. When asked what being part of this film meant to her, Gershon said, “It makes me really proud to have been part of that.” She went on to speak about witnessing the impact it had on queer women, saying:

“I get so happy when a woman comes and tells me how much it meant to her and how it helped her come out of the closet. There weren’t movies that girls could see that represented what they were feeling, so I think it was really important that it helped them know that,
“Hey, you’re okay. Other people feel this way too.”
Just the fact that we’re bound, we’re in a closet, everyone’s in a box, and the fact that they break out, I get the girl, I get the money, we become free, we become who we really want to be is a beautiful message.”

When I pointed out how much I love that Violet and Corky actually get a happy ending in Bound, Gershon couldn’t help but agree. “I think it’s the first happy movie I’ve ever done,” she laughed. “I mean, happy endings are rare. They’re like a love song. At the end, it’s a real feel-good movie. When they’re driving off, you just feel great. It’s nice to put out in the world these days.”

Reflecting on how far queer cinema has come in the past 28 years, Tilly said, “When Bound came out — people don’t even realize this because we’ve traveled over a lot of ground since then — it was very much pioneering and groundbreaking. [Lana and Lilly Wachowski] said to me, “You would not believe the actresses that would not come in, or the agents wouldn’t let them come in,” because of the lesbian plot.” Though the 90s don’t feel like that long ago, Tilly made the very valid point that “back then, it was sort of stigmatized a little bit. If you were a lesbian, then you had to be, like, a serial murderer or get terribly killed, or if you’re in a movie that had a lesbian subplot, you were sort of in, like, a C-list movie, like an exploitation thing.”

For Tilly the thing that makes Bound so groundbreaking isn’t the fact that Violet and Corky were lesbians, but that their queerness was just part of their characters rather than being their entire story. “The thing I think that was so groundbreaking about it is that them being gay was not really a plotline,” she explained.

“It’s your classic film noir, and
there was sort of a subtext that everybody has a mask
, like people aren’t who you think that they are. But
they just happened to be two people that fell in love
. The story is two people fall in love and decide to rip off the mob, and that’s what I think was groundbreaking about it, the very matter-of-fact way that they presented the story. Not like, “Oh, these people get together, and, oooh, they’re lesbian!” [Laughs] It was just presented like they were full-fledged characters in their own right. And the characters were so well-written and people really identified with them.”

Tilly also went on to gush about how happy she is that the movie means so much to such a range of queer audiences that have watched it over the years. “I really do love that the LGBTQ+ community is really taking it to heart and that people are very influenced by it. When I get on my Twitter, a lot of youth and kids and a lot of people say that they realized that they were gay when they saw the movie, or it caused them to come out, or it caused them to change the way that they live their lives, and that it was really unusual to see people like themselves up onscreen.” She went on to praise how the Wachowskis gave such dimension to both Violet and Corky, saying,” I think it’s because Violet and Corky are fully-fledged characters. They’re not like, “Oh, and plot twist: the murderer is a lesbian!” They were fully-fledged characters, and they were two people in love and they both just happened to be female. I think that’s what was groundbreaking about it and why people really took it to heart. And it’s just wonderfully written. It’s one of my very favorite movies that I’ve ever done, and I’m super proud of it.”

How ‘Bound’ Subverts Expectations With Violet and Corky’s Relationship
Image Via Gramercy Pictures 

Because we live in a heteronormative society, many people still expect the more masculine Corky to be the mastermind and initiator in the relationship and for the soft femme Violet to be more innocent and demure. However, Bound turns those expectations inside out and shows a real vulnerability in Corky as well as a cunnning capability in Violet. Further subverting the expected power dynamics of a noir film, or even many heterosexual relationships, Corky and Violet truly are on even footing throughout most of the film, with both women taking turns leading the charge in their heist and their relationship.

When asked about finding the softer side of Corky, Gershon explained that she immediately saw that as a core part of her character. “I saw her as not just shy, but she’s someone who went to jail because she was in love with someone who screwed her over and threw her under the bus, so she’s got to be a little gun-shy when it comes to relationships,” she explained. For Gershon, Corky’s storyline also transcended her queerness. “To me, her big journey is learning how to trust and to love again, which is universal, right? You could be a lesbian, you could be a gay guy, you could be a straight person, whatever you want to be,” she said. “To love and put yourself out there is scary, especially when you’re really putting your head on the chopping block that you could go back to jail or that you could be killed by the mob.”

Gershon went on to point out that in a classic noir, Violet and Corky would have turned on each other in the end. However, in subvertting that expectation, the Wachowskis delivered an unexpected but deeply satisfying love story. “I just think it goes from her not knowing what’s going on and not trusting anyone, especially Violet, because you think she’s going to screw her over, and as the audience, you think she’s going to screw you over because in the classic film noir, that’s what’s going to happen,” she explained. “The fact that it really becomes a real love story, and they win at the end, and they’re just happy, and they’re together, it’s a beautiful journey.”

During the initial casting process for Bound there was a bit of back and forth over who would play which part, as reportedly, Tilly had initially signed on to play Corky in a bid to go against type. However, the Wachowskis ultimately placed Tilly and Gershon in the perfect roles for each of them. “As much as I loved the part of Violet, I was coming off of Showgirls, and I really wanted to do something completely opposite,” Gershon confessed. “I liked the idea of cutting off my hair, cutting off my nails, wearing no makeup, and really showing a different side. Cristal was so femme and Violet was so femme, I just thought, ‘Oh my God…'” She went on to explain why she was so drawn to Corky, saying:

“Also, I’d never seen a woman play the typical hero, which is always a guy, and
I loved all those movies with Marlon Brando and Robert Mitchum. I just thought, ‘They’re so cool. I could play that.’
So, to me, I really was leaning towards that. I think they were like, ‘Wait, maybe you should be Violet.’ I think when they found Jennifer, I mean, she’s so clearly much more of a Violet. She played into it. She could play the other one, also, but it just worked this way better. It made my job easy because I could just watch her and do nothing. [Laughs] She’s so amusing, and
our energy, it just seemed to work that way, her chatting away and me just kind of looking at her
.”

Reflecting on her performance as Violet, Tilly said, “I think it’s one of my best performances ever. This is one of my very favorite films. I love my performance because it’s very still.” A bubbly personality in her own life, and in many of her other roles, Tilly remains proud of the depth and the subtle power she brought to Violet, saying “If you see me a lot, I’d say you just hear me talking now. I would say my basic thing is that I’m kind of goofy, and I talk really fast, and I’m funny. That’s sort of how I see myself. Violet, I saw her as an iceberg where most of her is submerged, and there’s just a little bit at the top, but you don’t even realize how deep and far down it goes.”

Tilly went on to explain how the Wachowski sisters helped her find that depth in some of the more intense moments of the film. She said:

“The Wachowskis were always really encouraging me. There were things that I put in, and they told me, ‘No, don’t do that.’ Like for example, when the fight breaks out, and she’s behind the bar cowering, I thought, ‘Oh, here’s where you can show, ‘Now she’s flashing back to when her mom killed her dad with a gun…’ I wanted her to just be freaking out behind the bar, and they go, “’No, she’s not.’ I go, ‘Well, what am I?’ She’s very calm. They said, ‘Well, she orchestrated this. Everything is going according to plan.’ I was like, Hmm, very interesting.’
The Wachowskis felt like
she never lets her feelings be shown because that’s her power
, is that nobody knows because she’s so deep and submerged. But she’s making herself vulnerable to Corky. Corky is the first time she actually really ever fell in love, and it scares her because being in love is being vulnerable. Now your happiness is sort of in other people’s hands.

Tilly also explained that Gershon had the right instincts for Corky and would go out to lesbian bars to really study for her character. “Gina went through San Francisco and went through all the gay bars with Susie [Bright], and she’d come in and she’d say, ‘Oh, I tried that line that Corky has on some girls last night. Didn’t work.’ She’d say, ‘We gotta change that.'” Tilly laughed. “I did not have any studying with Susie, but her influence, she was on the set and we met her and everything. My character is more submerged and she doesn’t walk as freely in the gay world as Corky did, so it was more for my character to be somebody that dips in and out of that world.

Gina Gershon Still Wishes They’d Gotten To Use Their Favorite Take of the Sex Scene in ‘Bound’
Image via Gramercy Pictures

While the sex scene in Bound is fairly explicit, especially by today’s standards, the scene never feels exploitative and it actually plays an important part in the film’s narrative. Having Corky and Violet share this very intense, powerful love scene shows the audience how real their relationship is and it follows through the end of the film when they choose to fight for each other instead of running away. In speaking about filming the scene, Gershon explained that they “did the whole scene in one take. Like every really incredible love scene, it’s very technical, and especially this. It was the four of us having sex — the wall went up, the wall went down, move your foot, move your hand. We’re trying to be passionate and in the moment.”

She went on to reveal that there was one take that she and Tllly, as well as the Wachowskis, all loved. And despite this take being less explicit, it wouldn’t make it past the ratings board. She said:

“There was one tape that all four of us, as soon as we saw it and watched it back, we’re like, ‘That’s it.’ It was so beautiful, and
you really feel Violet and Corky really in love
. It was a very tender, intense movie, and you saw absolutely nothing. You didn’t see my breasts,
it was like the least sexual.
You knew what was going on, but it wasn’t as carnal as the other ones. I never felt exploited. It wasn’t as graphic. But because
God forbid two women be really in love with each other, the ratings board said, ‘Oh, no. That’s an NC-17,’ yet they okayed the one that was a little bit more lusty and more of a sex scene, and that was okay to be an R
. I thought that that was such bullshit, and it said more about America and the ratings board than anything else. I think we all still wish we had the other scene in there. This one was really great, but the other one, I don’t know, it was just such a beautiful, intense, loving scene.”

Reflecting on the scene, Tilly explained that she was nervous going in because she “didn’t do a lot of nude scenes.” Wanting to avoid the typical male fantasy version of a lesbian sex scene she said that she, Gershon, and the Wachowskis all wanted the scene to be very accurate and went on to praise the film’s technical consultant, Susie Bright. “We didn’t want it to be like a Penthouse vision of lesbians where they’re wearing high heels and pearls and lingerie. [Laughs] We wanted it to be very accurate,” Tilly noted. “That’s why the Wachowskis brought in Susie Bright, who was very much a sex-positive advocate for the gay community, the lesbian community. I remember she told them that lesbians’ sexual apparatus is their hands rather than their penises and helped them write that scene.”

Tilly also spoke about how difficult it was for the Wachowskis to get Bound down to an R-rating. With an NC-17-rated film, your chances at the box office are extremely limited — some theaters won’t even show movies that score an NC-17. She said:

”
Bound
, because it was about
lesbians
, it was gonna get an NC-17 rating, and the rating board said, ‘No, you have to cut at least two minutes out of the scene,’ or something like that. They just kept going back with their movie under their arms, and they kept going, ‘Oh, we cut a few more seconds. How is this?’ They went back eight times. You’re only supposed to go back three times, but they were like, ‘Oh, well, we’re from Chicago. We don’t really know.’ [Laughs] Finally, they just got tired of seeing them, so they go, ‘Oh, okay!’ Because we originally had the NC-17, and they gave us our R-rating. So, the movie, when you see it, is very, very, very much their sensibility.”

Upon seeing the final product herself, Tilly was blown away by the electric chemistry she shared with Gershon, saying: “I was so astonished that Gina and I had such great chemistry because it’s this magical thing. You either have it or you don’t. A lot of times, I literally had affairs with my co-stars, and we had no chemistry at all. Gina and I, we were, like, eating donuts and laughing, and in between takes on the sex scene, we were talking about the shoe sale at Barney’s.” When translated to the screen, all of that chemistry gave a realness to their relationship. As Tilly put it:

“Then you look in, and
it’s this mysterious, magical relationship where you really believe it
, and you’re really sucked into their relationship. We’re so pleased, and we’re saying, totally without hubris, like, “Oh my god, we have that magical ingredient. We don’t know how we made it. How do we get there?” We have
chemistry
. But that’s why I think the film has endured. I think they’re both such strong characters, and Joey was the perfect counterpoint to us. We were like this kind of crazed throuple. [Laughs]”

Gershon also thinks fondly of the chemistry she shares with Tilly, saying, “Jennifer and I really trusted each other. I mean, our problem was sometimes we would just talk and talk and start laughing too much. The guys would be like, ‘Okay, shut up.’ We would get together, and we’d just go on and on and on and on. I love Jennifer.”

Jennifer Tilly on Working With the Wachowskis in Their Directorial Debut

As Criterion releases Bound on Blu-ray, Tilly urges fans to check out the commentary track included on the disc which features herself and Gershon along with, fellow star Joe Pantoliano, editor Zach Staenberg, Bright, and the Wachowskis. Initially, the cast weren’t meant to be part of the track, but they crashed the recording and the bonus feature is all the better for it. “If you have time, you have to listen to the commentary [from] Gina and Joey and I. We weren’t even supposed to be in the commentary, but Joey is very aggressive, and we’re all three competitive. We used to squabble like cats and dogs. Gina, Joey, and I are like brothers and sisters,” Tilly explained. “Joey found out that they were doing commentary and he’s like, ‘I should be there!’ And then Gina and I found out that Joey was gonna do it. We weren’t even invited. They didn’t want us there. They wanted Bill Pope and the Wachowski Sisters.”

“So, first of all, Joe gets there first, and then I show up and then Gina. Gina always was the last one out of the trailer. She always has to be the last to arrive, like, ‘The queen has arrived, the party can start!'” Tilly laughed, “We’re just all squabbling and insulting each other. It’s really funny to listen to. It’s funny because you look at it, and it’s such a romantic relationship between me and Gina, and then Joey, who’s hysterical, he’s our adversary, but when you listen to the commentary, you see our real dynamic.”

She went on to explain how determined the Wachowskis were to bring the movie to life without compromising what they had written or envisioned. “Originally they took the script to Warner Bros., and Warner Bros. said, ‘Well, if you make Corky a man then we’ll give you $11 million.’ They were really sad. They were like, ‘Well, Corky is a girl.'” Where other filmmakers might have taken that deal, the Wachowskis were adamant that the love story be between two women.

“A lot of screenwriters would be like, ‘Okay, I can do that.’ They pretty much got everything the way that they wanted it. They’re very meticulous in planning the shots, and they didn’t let us improvise hardly anything, especially Violet — Joey [Pantoliano] got to improvise a little bit. But they had a very clear vision of what they wanted and what they would do.”

Tilly went on to explain that that commitment to vision led the Wachowski’s making some brilliantly creative choices — creating some of the film’s most iconic shots. “The shot where Gina and I are whispering, where it’s just our lips, and then I go, ‘Corky, kiss me.’ They wanted this special camera that cost $10,000, and they kept asking [Dino] De Laurentiis for that camera, and then finally, because the dailies were coming in so good, he let them have it,” she explained. “But they just had kept going, ‘Hey, can we have that camera? Can we have that camera? Can we have that camera?’ Because it was additional to the budget, but they felt like it was very important to have a close-up of the two of the two lips.”

Speaking of another iconic moment in the film, Tilly explained how the Wachowski’s created a special device just to safely get the shot they wanted. “Then there’s another shot where the mafia boss falls down. They wanted him to fall like a mighty tree in the forest, and the supervisors said, ‘You can’t have him fall that way because he would break. It would really hurt him.’ Not even with padding or anything. So, they invented this machine with a lever that would just let him down,” said Tilly. “It was a brilliant shot where he gets shot, and you just see him going down, down, down, down. They were asking Dino De Laurentiis, that was $20,000 for that for three weeks.”

Since making Bound both Lily and Lana Wachowski have come out as trans women. Tilly explained that that particular revelation also made the instinctual way that the Wachowski’s wrote she and Gina’s characters only make more sense.

“At the time, Gina and I were saying, ‘How could they write such brilliant parts for women? They really understand women.’ And then it all became clear a few years later after
Bound
came out [when] both of them transitioned. It was like the last piece of the puzzle falling into place. We’re like, “That totally makes sense.” It’s like, “This is so cool.”But we’re very proud of how important it is. It’s a very, very important film in the LGBTQ+ community. When it first came out, nobody saw it. It was in a few theaters for less than a week and then it just disappeared. So, it’s very gratifying that it finally found its audience almost 30 years later, and that people love it, and that we have these wonderful Criterion Collection DVDs coming out.”

Jennifer Tilly Doesn’t Think ‘Bound’ Needs a Sequel
Tilly explained that part of the beauty of Bound is that we all get to imagine what happens for Corky and Violet in the future, for better or worse. Initially, Tilly didn’t see a long-term happily ever after for the couple, as she worried that maybe “Violet doesn’t really have the capacity to love as much as Corky.” But seeing how fans reacted to her headcanons that they might have broken up, she swiftly changed her tune, saying: “People didn’t like that one little bit, so I’m like, ‘I take it back! I take it back! 30 years from now, they have a bed and breakfast in Maine, which was always their big dream.’ [Laughs] But I was a little worried for Corky because I felt like Violet loves Corky as much as she ever loved anybody, but, you know, who knows?”

In a world filled to the brim with sequels, adaptations, and remakes, the temptation to revisit anything even remotely successful is all too tempting in Hollywood. But luckily for us, it doesn’t sound like anyone — in front of or behind the camera — is interested in tarnishing the legacy of Bound with a sequel, at least not without getting the whole band back together. Tilly explained:

“I always hesitate. People are always saying, ‘Oh, you should do a sequel to
Bound
,’ or, ‘Do
Bound 2
,’ and Gina says she would do it if Lana and Lilly could do it, if they would write it, if it had the Wachowskis. But I always feel like it’s a mistake to go back. People love Violet and Corky from 30 years ago. They like to imagine how it ends and where it goes on from there. If we were doing a sequel — maybe if we did it like three years later, but unfortunately, it took 25 years for
Bound
to find its audience. [Laughs] I don’t think we need a sequel because I think the movie is complete in itself.”

Gina Gershon Teases Her Role in ‘Borderlands’ and the Re-Release of ‘Prey for Rock & Roll’
Image via Lionsgate

While I will likely rewatch Bound for years and years to come, Gershon has another exciting role on the horizon that she’s looking forward to sharing with audiences. She plays NPC Mad Moxxi in the upcoming Borderlands adaptation, and while she’s not in the film a ton she had nothing but lovely things to say about the rest of the cast. “The movie is just absolutely crazy,” she laughed. “It’s bonkers. I was never a video game player, but you feel like you’re in a video game for sure. Moxxi, she’s in and out. I wish I had more scenes, but my bit with Mad Moxxi–” Cutting herself off before she could give anything away, Gershon went on to say:

“Cate [Blanchett] is fantastic as always. The cast is incredible. Ariana Greenblatt, that’s my favorite part. But between Cate and Jamie Lee Curtis and Edgar Ramírez and Jack Black and Kevin Hart, it was a really fun group of people to be in lockdown with in Budapest. I hope people like it. I think it’s absolutely crazy, and it looks insane. It’s fun. I have to see it again. I just saw it once, and I think I was so, like, ‘Oh my God,’ blown away by just the sheer madness of it. I think the fans will really like it.”

Before we said goodbye, Gershon took a moment to shout out another iconic LGBTQ+ film of hers currently returning to the limelight as Prey For Rock & Roll gets a re-release in NYC this summer. “Prey for Rock & Roll is being re-released,” she said ahead of screenings at The Quad on June 30 and IFC on July 19. “That’s another movie that I’m starting to do some press on. I’m really excited for people to see that because I love that movie so much, and people really never got a chance to see it. Unlike Bound, you couldn’t stream it anywhere, you couldn’t find it anywhere, so I’m excited for people to see that as well. That’s coming up.” When asked what she hopes new audiences take away from the film, she said, “That there’s nothing cooler than being in an all-girl band.”

The Criterion Collection edition of Bound is now available to purchase on Blu-ray and 4K UHD.

Image via Criterion

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