Producers, Need a New Director? How About Susan Sarandon?

CANNES, France—The Cannes Film Festival is still in full swing in southern France, and of course, Everybody who's Anybody is there ... including acclaimed actress and political activist Susan Sarandon, who hasn't had a problem revealing her ample breasts in such movies as Joe (1970), Pretty Baby (1978), Bull Durham (1988), Twilight (1998) and several others. But now, at age 69, Sarandon wow'd the crowd by announcing that after she retires from acting, she'd like to make some porn—and not just any porn, but female-friendly porn. "I have threatened in my 80s to direct porn," Sarandon told the British newspaper The Times. "I haven't watched enough to know what the problems are. Most pornography is brutal and doesn't look pleasurable from a female point of view. So I've been saying when I no longer want to act, I want to do that." It's long been known that Sarandon's no prude, having once been married to character/voice actor Chris Sarandon—he played a pre-op tranny in Dog Day Afternoon—and for more than two decades she was partnered with actor/activist Tim Robbins, 12 years her junior. According to Sarandon, a lot of porn directors "often come at sex scenes from the wrong direction" and that, in her opinion, "the moment that gets you into bed, and the moment after" are the most interesting. "The middle? Well, a lot of people know what's in the middle," she told reporters. "But what makes a sex act really interesting is how that first touch happens, how that first kiss comes. Those moments need to be looked at." Sarandon admits she hasn't seen a lot of porn, though of course, her criticisms do apply to much of the industry's product, whose main objective is sexual gratification rather than artistry—but on the other hand, it's the more artistic productions that tend to win the industry's major awards. But Sarandon's already shown that she has a director's mind when it comes to sexual situations. She told The Times, regarding her Hollywood sex scene with French actress Catherine Deneuve in The Hunger, "It was Tony Scott's first film and I intervened in the script. First of all, it was written that I was drunk and I said, 'Seriously? You have to be drunk to get into bed with Catherine Deneuve? I don't think so. Isn't it more interesting if it is voluntary?'" Of course, the answer to that depends on the kind of film you're making, but it's clear that when it comes to sex, Sarandon's given the subject a lot of thought. "What makes a sex act really interesting is how that first touch happens, how that first kiss comes," she added, "so in The Hunger, Tony allowed me to come up with an idea about the T-shirt and then the kiss. Those moments need to be looked at." Now, doesn't that sound like someone who might be a major asset to some of adult's more prominent producers? Pictured: Susan Sarandon campaigning for Bernie Sanders in 2016; photo by Derrick Rossignol from Wikimedia Commons