Lunch With Rose McGowan

BY ROBERT HOFLER

Most people became aware of you from Scream. Was that a great experience?

Yes. What I didn't tell [director] Wes Craven is that I cannot scream at all. I choke up. No sound. He had to scream at me, literally, when I did my death scene.

Didn't it seem strange that there were all these high-school students in Scream and none of the actors who played them were teenagers? You all looked so much older.

But I was one once. I remember. I'm only 23 now. If you have a problem with me playing a teenager, go watch Beverly Hills 90210. They're all like 45. That's why Tori Spelling has all that plastic surgery.

What movies did you see as a kid that made you want to act?

The first film I saw was On Golden Pond, on video. I grew up in a commune in Italy, so there wasn't a lot of TV and movies.

You grew up in a commune?

My parents were weird hippies. They didn't want to be involved with American culture. I didn't speak English until I was 10. They lived in a commune because they had these religious beliefs, and I was taught if I didn't snap my fingers God wasn't going to let me drive a car when I was 16.

Scream was set in such a pristine little town. Did that seem like another world to you?

It was like stepping back in time -- close tightknit friends, the best friend from kindergarten and the nice house with the mom who serves you breakfast, which is totally foreign to me. With movies, I get to go back and re-create things that I missed. I never went to school. I was home-schooled.

You never went to school?

I went to a couple of artsy schools, where there were 20 kids lying on a couch listening to Kurt Vonnegut. But for the most part my mom taught me.

A lot of young actors -- Joaquin Phoenix, David Arquette, Winona Ryder -- came out of communes. Do you talk to them about that?

Joaquin Phoenix was in the exact same commune, which is the Children of God, which is what my father ran. I haven't met Winona Ryder, but David Arquette and I have a lot of the same experiences.

Such as?

I was kind of an orphan. I've been on my own since I was 15, had all sorts of jobs, lied about my age a lot to get those jobs. Waitressing, sales jobs, ticket-takers, that kind of thing. There was a while I was living on the streets.

Does that freak you out now when you see homeless people, filthy and begging for food?

Well, I never quite got to that point! No, I'd spend the nights in clubs. Gay bars were good. The guys would leave you alone, which was nice. I got gay-bashed once. I was wearing this little jacket and jeans, my hair was pulled back. I guess I looked like this young guy.

Where's home now?

Los Angeles. What I love about L.A. is that you can drive 20 minutes and no one speaks your language and no one cares what you do. They're all into their own thing. The other great thing about Los Angeles is that you can be standing on a street corner, naked, banging cymbals over your head, and people will be on their cell phones looking at you going, "Oh my God! Well, what I was saying was . . .'' That's great. There's something great about self-absorbency.