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Biography
Guinevere Jane Turner (born May 23, 1968) is an American actress and screenwriter. She was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She is best known as the screenwriter of such films as American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page and for playing the lead role of the dominatrix Tanya Cheex in Preaching to the Perverted.
Family
Guinevere is the oldest of six children. She has three brothers and two sisters. She is also an aunt to one niece and one nephew.
Career
Turner and I Shot Andy Warhol director Mary Harron wrote a screenplay, which ended up being selected for the film version of Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho. She has a brief cameo in the film, in which she delivers the in-joke, "I'm not a lesbian!" (Turner is openly lesbian). There is also a line about attending Sarah Lawrence College, Turner's real-life alma mater.
Turner emerged on the scene with the film Go Fish, which she co-wrote and co-produced with her then-girlfriend, Rose Troche. Turner also starred in the film, portraying a young woman named Max whose friends help her find a new girlfriend, Ely, portrayed by VS Brodie. Director Kevin Smith was a fan of the movie, particularly a scene in it wherein, in an imagined sequence, some of a character's friends chastise her for "selling out" and sleeping with a man, and used it as an inspiration for his own take on a similar theme in his own film Chasing Amy. Turner has cameos in both Chasing Amy and Smith's later film Dogma; her name is used as that of Joey Lauren Adams' character in Smith's Mallrats.
A writer and story editor for the first two seasons of The L Word, Turner also made several memorable guest appearances on the show as Alice Pieszecki's screenwriter ex-girlfriend, Gabby.
In 2005, Turner wrote the script for BloodRayne. It was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screenplay in 2006, however in the film "Tales from the Script" she stated in an interview that the director only used about 25% of her screenplay.
In 2005, she co-wrote the script for The Notorious Bettie Page with Mary Harron, who directed the film.
Turner's first foray into web television is the 2008 online drama series, FEED, directed by Mel Robertston, launched on AfterEllen.com. 2014 she appeared along Nayo Wallace, Candis Cayne and Cathy DeBuono in Jane Clark's horror comedy film Crazy Bitches.
Turner has directed several short films, such as The Hummer and Hung, which have appeared in many international film festivals.
Filmography
- 1994: Go Fish (writer, actress)
- 1996: The Watermelon Woman
- 1997: Chasing Amy
- 1997: Preaching to the Perverted
- 1998: Dante's View
- 1999: Dogma
- 2000: American Psycho (writer, actress)
- 2001: The Fluffer
- 2001: Spare Me (writer)
- 2002: Pipe Dream
- 2002: Stray Dogs
- 2003: Hummer (short film, writer-director-actress)
- 2005: Dani and Alice
- 2004/2005: The L Word (TV series)
- 2005: BloodRayne (writer)
- 2005: Hung (short film, writer-director-actress)
- 2005: The Notorious Bettie Page (writer)
- 2006: A Lez in Wonderland (original title: Broute-minou à Palm Springs)
- 2007: Itty Bitty Titty Committee
- 2008: Late (short film, writer-director)
- 2008: Little Mutinies on YouTube
- 2010: The Owls (actress)
- 2012: Breaking the Girls (writer)
- 2013: Who's Afraid of Vagina Wolf? (actress)
- 2014: Crazy Bitches (actress)