Geena Davis Says Some Directors 'Wanted to Make Sure I Knew My Place' After Her Oscar Win

Geena Davis faced different dynamics on set after winning an Oscar.

The actress won Best Supporting Actress at the 61st annual Academy Awards held on March 29, 1989, for her performance in The Accidental Tourist. Speaking with entertainment journalist Allison Kugel for the latest episode of the Allison Interviews podcast, Davis recalled how directors treated her differently on movie sets after receiving the accolade.

"I didn't ever think, 'This is my magic ticket to doing everything I want to do,' or, like, now I was at the top of the A-list, or anything like that," said Davis, 65. "I didn't think of it that way, but I did unexpectedly feel a tremendous feeling of having accomplished something. I thought, 'Well, I got that out of the way. I never have to wonder if I'm going to get one of these things.' "

She added, "I had two directors, after I won the Oscar, who I had a rocky start with, because they assumed that I was going to think I was 'all that,' and they wanted to make sure that I didn't feel like I was 'all that.' "

"Without having met me or having spent any time with me or anything, they just assumed I was going to be like, 'Well, now no one is going to tell me what to do!' " explained Davis, adding, "I think maybe because I was a woman, the directors felt that way. And maybe it was even unconscious bias that they would maybe do it to a woman and not a man. But they didn't want a woman to potentially cause them any problems."

"They wanted to make sure I knew my place, and maybe ... it probably wouldn't happen to a man," said Davis, who earned another Oscar nomination for 1991's Thelma & Louise.

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In the interview, Davis also remembered how working with costar Susan Sarandon on Thelma & Louise shifted her perspective on how women can collaborate on a film set.

"She had the most impact of any person in my life because I'd never really spent time with a woman who moves through the world the way she does," she said of Sarandon, now 75. "It sounds crazy to be 33 years old at the time and first experiencing a woman like that, but I really had previously never met a woman who didn't preface everything with, 'Well, I don't know what you will think, and this is probably a stupid idea, but….' "

"She just lived her life and said, 'This is what I think.' To have three months of exposure to that was amazing," said Davis.

"The way I was raised was to be extremely polite, to a fault," shared Davis. "I was sort of trained not to ask for things and not to be any trouble to anybody, but she obviously wasn't, so she just said things the way she wanted to say them, like, 'Let's cut this line,' or 'Let's do it this way,' or 'This is what I would like to do.' There wasn't any reaction whatsoever from anybody of, like, 'Wow!,' partly because she didn't present herself as combative. She was always just like, 'This is what I want. This is what I like. This is what I think.' "

In 2004, the actress founded the Geena Davis Institute on Gender In Media. Over the years, the institute has become a powerful voice in compiling and delivering data documenting the gender imbalance to film studios, television networks and content creators, beginning with a focus on children's entertainment.

She told PEOPLE in 2020, "The goal is to have the fictitious worlds that are created reflect the real world, which is half female and incredibly diverse. It's not some weird, outrageous concept to make it so that kids can see people like them on the screen."