Stockard Channing has shared details about an uncomfortable interaction she had with a male co-star that left her wincing.
The 80-year-old American actor played Betty Rizzo in the 1978 film, Grease. The romantic comedy and musical starring John Travolta as Danny Zuko and Sandy Olsson as Olivia Newton-John became a cult classic, propelling its cast to international stardom.
Channing played the dry and sarcastic Rizzo, who is frenemies with Sandy. She went on to a successful career in film and TV, becoming nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Six Degrees of Separation in 1993, in which she starred alongside Will Smith.
“I’m not going to name the actor, but we were in a movie together and we were doing a press tour,” she told The Times. “We passed each other from one press table to another, and he said, ‘you were my wet dream when I was 12.’ Oh, thank you so much. A little too much information.”
Reflecting on her work during Grease she said: “I gave [Grease] my all, and I’m proud of the performance and proud of the character. But at the time, it was not taken at all seriously. The money that it was making was resented. I was resented. It’s a kid’s movie — it was really p***ed on.”
She added: “That’s one of the reasons I went back to the stage. But then I realised with time, how it’s affected generations, especially of women and even some men.”
Channing has had her fair share of admirers over the years, with Bad Boys star Smith admitting he fell in love with her during their time shooting together.
At the time, in 1993, Smith was married to his first wife, Sheree Zampino, and the two had just welcomed their first child together.
“Sheree and I were in the first few months of our marriage with a brand-new baby and for Sheree, I can imagine that this experience was unsettling to say the least,” Smith wrote in his memoir, Will.
“She’d married a guy named Will Smith and now she was living with a guy named Paul Poitier [his character in the film]. And to make matters worse, during shooting I fell in love with Stockard Channing.”
After filming wrapped up, Smith says he found himself “desperately yearning to see and speak to Stockard”.
