Charmed star Rose McGowwn gives huge life update five years after she quit Hollywood
Rose McGowan quit her acting career because she wanted "silence" away from Hollywood.
The 51-year-old star played Paige Matthews on the hit series 'Charmed' but moved to Mexico in 2020 after realising that she could do what her character did in terms of activism in her real life and wanted to "listen" to others. '
Speaking as part of a panel at 90s Con in Connecticut, she said: "My father lived in Mexico for 35 years and mi gusta Mexico. Te quiero much, mi amores. It is an incredible country. It is so wildly geographically diverse, culturally diverse and just very, very special. There's so much joy.
"My favourite word in Spanish is alegria, which means joy, and there's so much of that there and color and and passion and and fun and different ... just different. And you know I had to talk for a lot of years, kind of more than normal people might.
"At one point, you know, as Paige was a social worker and I was raised in a commune growing up in Italy to be kind of a volunteer, and I kind of thought, 'Well, I can also do this in real life. Away from this.'
"There's a point where I just got really talked out. I just wanted to listen. I wanted silence, and I wanted to listen more than I wanted to talk."
The 'Scream' actress does find it a "challenge" to be living somewhere where she isn't fluent in the language but has always been of an "adventurous" nature and recently embraced the idea of going to the "most remote location" she could find.
She said: "There's things about it that are difficult, just like anywhere, and it's certainly a challenge sometimes, doing things when, at first, you don't really know the language. You're navigating a totally different system. You learn very quickly, though.
"I like adventure. I've kind of always been the adventurous sort. I always kind of lived in dense areas, so at one point I went to like the most remote location in this area in Mexico that I'm at. It was just me and my dog and a metal pipe for a shower.
"That was it, and I was grateful, right? And the gratitude that you feel for smaller things, because you have to fight for them and you appreciate them!"
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Perth Now
2 days ago
- Perth Now
The old Leederville restaurant that deserves more attention
Duende has been around the block. Launched by local luminary Nic Trimboli, Perth's first Spanish tapas restaurant took over the space on an isthmus between Newcastle Street and Carr Place in Leederville previously occupied by Eminem — the much-lauded Turkish eatery, not the Detroit rapper — waaaaay back in 2003. That's so long ago the current crop of Perth food influencers were still blogging in their nappies or hitting child care for free canapes and bubbly milk when Duende served its first pimientos de padron and patatas bravas. Once considered among Perth's hottest restaurants, this joint has seen some action, and it shows. The decor is dated, menus arrive on clipboards, and the booths need new upholstery. A small fan rattled away on the bar, while daggy dance-pop blared away. Duende is Spanish for 'passion and inspiration'. At first glance, both seemed to be sorely lacking when my wife and I made a long overdue return to this Leederville mainstay for dinner on a Thursday evening. Duende tapas bar, Leederville. Credit: Supplied Duende tapas bar, Leederville Credit: Simon Collins When we walked past the chalkboards and into Duende, we were the only customers. Ay, no! By the time we left at about 8pm, only two other tables were occupied. Double ay, no! If this review achieves one thing, I hope it helps Duende return to the top of the pops. The food is banging — like, Ricky Martin's Livin' La Vida Loca banging — and the wine list has some mic-drop-worthy Spanish drops at prices that don't seem to have moved since Duende opened. Credit for the fantastic, mostly authentic, tapas goes to Indian-born chef Remya Geminiani, who grew up in Modena, Italy. The 'Italian pocket rocket', as she is described on the venue's socials, started a chef's apprenticeship when she was 14 years old, and was ducking flying frying pans in four-star hotel restaurants at 18. Chicken and chorizo paella at Duende tapas bar in Leederville. Credit: Supplied Geminiani trained and worked in kitchens across the Canary Islands, focusing on traditional techniques and Mediterranean flavours for five years before following her heart Down Under in 2016. She worked as head chef at a Melbourne cafe for four years before moving to Margaret River for a stint at Voyager Estate, where she refined her skills and built know-how around fermentation, smoking, and seasonal WA produce. While she only joined Duende in April, Geminiani has already had an impact. She's clearly a gem, and Phil Crocker, who bought the Leederville diner in 2013, did well to recruit her. Service was sharp. A lovely glass of cava and sangria, full to the brim, lobbed on the table within minutes of us plonking down on a table for four. (We had plenty of room, the waiter said.) Later we shared a brilliant bottle of Spanish wine, a Murcia-style blending monastrell and cabernet sauvignon grapes that was on special for $40. What year is it again? The padron peppers at Leederville tapas bar Duende. Credit: Supplied Duende also has signature cocktails with an Iberian twist, plus gin and tonics, spirits, and a decent roster of sherries. I remembered why I never drive home from this place. Speaking of specials, we decided to start with the chorizo de vino tino ($26), a flame-grilled fancy mini-snagger from Northbridge's Torre Butchers in red wine reduction served with charred bread. The chorizo was rich, quite gamey, and delicious. The champinones ($22), or mushrooms marinated in Pedro Ximenez sherry, were served with blue cheese and candied walnuts. A champion dish, you could really taste the PX in the mushies, which were served warm in a ceramic ramekin. A must-have dish. Gambas ajillo ($26), or prawns cooked in garlic, chilli and white wine, at Duende. Credit: Supplied Padron peppers are a staple of tapas for a good reason, and the pimiento de padron ($22) at Duende is excellent. Perhaps they could've been scorched more for that blackened, blistered skin but they were juicy and rested on a fresh herb mayonnaise with snow pea tendrils and oil — and radishes. Chef Geminiani has a thing for radishes. Where other Perth chefs overuse fried shallots, Duende's head chef popped thinly sliced radishes on almost everything bar the dessert, my sangria, and the bill. Clearly, Big Radish has got to her. After those three small plates, we ordered the chicken and chorizo paella ($22) and gambas ajillo ($26) — six delicious, well-charred prawns cooked in garlic, chilli and white wine. Another tasty winner, the small paella had as much chook and chorizo as rice. I like a bit of spice in my rice, so I asked for a hot sauce. Maybe Tabasco, if they had it. The chef whipped up a chilli sauce that was bang-on, and nearly lifted my head off. Luckily, I had some red plonk to calm my palate. The chocolate mousse at Leederville tapas bar Duende. Credit: Supplied The chocolate mousse with vanilla ice-cream and berry coulis was rich and sticky. Blackberries hid inside the smooth choccy, while more PX syrup made this a grown-up dessert. We shared a sherry drier than Hacks comedy diva Deborah Vance to really kick this home, while my wife commandeered the spoon. Daggy decor, bad dance music . . . who cares? The food rocked my socks off. I may never wear shoes again. Duende isn't the only tapas joint in Perth. It's not even the only one in Leederville. But it might be the best. To quote Eminem, the Detroit rapper, not the Turkish eatery, 'guess who's back'. Duende 662 Newcastle Street, Leederville OPEN Wednesday-Sunday, noon-late. CONTACT 9228 0123, BOOKINGS Yes THE VERDICT Hola! Plot a return to Perth's original tapas joint. New head chef Remya Geminiani has it back on track and banging with superb small dishes and great-value wines. Don't drive. 16.5/20
The Age
2 days ago
- The Age
Ghosts, grouches and hidden treasures: Forty years inside a Brisbane second-hand store
They call her 'Netty'. She wears a black sequinned gown, and has been seen sweeping down the aisle of the former Plaza Theatre in Paddington, now the Empire Revival antiques and interiors store. Lee Cary, the shop's customer relations manager, has seen her. One day, she and a colleague even heard her speak. It was just one word. 'She whispered, 'abundance'. We both heard it, then she just vanished,' Cary says. Customers have described an uncanny feeling in two areas of the building. 'There's a distinct energy,' Cary says. 'It's not eerie, but it's unmistakable.' 'Abundance' is an apt descriptor for Empire Revival. They have jewellery, homewares, furniture and retro clothing in abundance, with 60 merchants operating under the one roof. They have history in abundance too. The 900-seat Plaza Theatre was built in 1929, opposite the old tram terminal on Latrobe Terrace. Richard Gailey Jnr designed it as a pastiche of Spanish and Middle-Eastern architecture. Its financiers went insolvent while construction was still under way, so the building contractor, Hutchinson, went into the cinema business. It was designed to be an 'atmospheric theatre' – meaning its ceiling evoked the night sky, with a pulley system of moving clouds, stars and planets. Cinema patrons would jump on passing trams to get a beer at the Paddo Tavern before returning for the remainder of their session. 'We have had people come in who claim to have been conceived in the theatre,' owner Suzy Baines says. The building hasn't screened films since 1962, but the proscenium arch still clings precariously to the far wall. There are ornamental balconies and columns. The front of the building is old-school opulent, and a plaque in the floor of the foyer carries the name of the theatre. If you close your eyes, you can smell the Jaffas. When TV came along and killed the cinema, it became an indoor basketball court, then sat vacant for 10 years. In 1985, two couples – Graham and Anne Hesse and John and Heather Mildwaters – bought it, opening the Paddington Antiques Centre. Suzy Baines enters the story in 2008. Baines had worked in PR, as a speech and drama teacher, and as a bookkeeper. She had just bought a new home and needed some furniture. 'My mother and I went on an antiques-buying trip to Eastern Europe and brought back a container of antiques with no idea what we were going to do with them. Then I happened to be in Paddington with a girlfriend. 'I saw the sign in the window saying 'business for sale' and within a week, I bought it.' Suzy Baines Baines had never been in business. Counterintuitively, she reasoned she needed to buy a large enterprise because, with three children to raise, she was too busy to run a small one. 'This is a seven-day-a-week business, so you have to employ staff, and that gives you greater flexibility. 'The best piece of advice I got was from one of my brothers: 'Don't change anything until you understand why it's been done the way it's been done.'' She took over just as the GFC hit, but didn't feel its impact. '[Second-hand] does well when times are tough because people perceive it as offering better value.' Baines, who runs Empire Revival in partnership with her daughter, Olivia, rents out spaces but centralises the sales and manages the staff, leaving vendors free to find their stock, price it and display it. 'Our business model, I think, is going to become more and more used because it enables people to do what they're good at and have somebody else take care of the things that can drag you down. 'It's not just that the model works really well for retailers today, it's such a great way to use these old spaces.' True to her word, Baines has found another old cinema – Murwillumbah's 1947 Regent Theatre – to expand the business later this year. The Regent even has a similar name plaque in its floor. (Baines also has a store called The Emporium in Kalbar in the Scenic Rim.) 'Anything that you did with it other than have it as an antique centre was going to involve compromising how people experienced the space,' she says. 'We'll be part of an arts precinct that has so much vibrancy and activity already. You're buying into a community, and I really like that.' One of the colourful identities of Paddington, Baines has a flamboyant sense of personal style, favouring outfits with big sleeves and strong colours. Wandering around the Empire Revival shopfloor, she stops at a bright-green, trimmed fur coat with an orange collar and cuffs. 'Oh wow, look at that,' she says. 'Amazing! I reckon it's '60s.' Vintage clothing was the focus of the annual fashion parades she held here some years back, models sashaying a full circuit of the 700-square-metre store. Diversifying into clothing and new items, such as upholstery fabrics and lampshades by Sachs & Cornish, prompted a name change for the Paddington Antiques Centre in 2018. 'I needed the flexibility to be able to move into things that were more representative of what people were looking for,' Baines says. Antique items are still a feature at Empire Revival, however. She introduces me to one of the longest-standing merchants, Wallace, who points out a stunning art nouveau mirror, dated at 1904 (sale price: $1500). Baines tells me about the time 10 years ago when a woman came in clutching a large object wrapped in a towel. 'Her brothers used to play cricket and use it as stumps. Somehow, this thing that was rolling around in the back of her car survived.' It was an art deco vase by the English ceramicist Clarice Cliff (1899-1972). Longtime stallholder Stan Prickett made inquiries and verified its value at about $40,000. Nowadays, the store runs an Antiques Roadshow -style valuation service one Sunday a month, with three experts giving their opinions in exchange for a gold-coin charity donation. In 2020, Baines converted a storeroom into a second-hand book depository called The Cupboard Under the Stage, and opened the Loft Gallery to artist exhibitions. To acknowledge the shop's 40th anniversary and the building's silver-screen past, an exhibition of vintage movie gear has been set up in the foyer, courtesy of local collector John Schindler: clapper boards, a hulking old camera, a jazz-era microphone on a stand. Baines shows me the southern side of the building, where Netty has been spotted browsing. 'Over the years, people will come in, usually women, and say: 'I can't be here. I can't be in this space. There are presences here', and they flee.' She pauses, at the space where Rosie Bates used to have a stall selling jewellery, collectibles and small furniture pieces. Bates was British, brought up in China, and had an excellent eye for antiques. A ferocious competitor at auctions, she worked at the centre well into her eighties, before dying about a decade ago. Loading 'She was the most crotchety old woman you can imagine. But very funny! 'She always got a cab in. One day she came in, cross as, and said: 'That cabbie wanted to know where I wanted to go!' 'One day I said to her: 'Rosie, your trackie is inside out.' She said: 'Yes, the other side is dirty.'' Baines laughs. 'It's an industry of characters.'
Sydney Morning Herald
2 days ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Ghosts, grouches and hidden treasures: Forty years inside a Brisbane second-hand store
They call her 'Netty'. She wears a black sequinned gown, and has been seen sweeping down the aisle of the former Plaza Theatre in Paddington, now the Empire Revival antiques and interiors store. Lee Cary, the shop's customer relations manager, has seen her. One day, she and a colleague even heard her speak. It was just one word. 'She whispered, 'abundance'. We both heard it, then she just vanished,' Cary says. Customers have described an uncanny feeling in two areas of the building. 'There's a distinct energy,' Cary says. 'It's not eerie, but it's unmistakable.' 'Abundance' is an apt descriptor for Empire Revival. They have jewellery, homewares, furniture and retro clothing in abundance, with 60 merchants operating under the one roof. They have history in abundance too. The 900-seat Plaza Theatre was built in 1929, opposite the old tram terminal on Latrobe Terrace. Richard Gailey Jnr designed it as a pastiche of Spanish and Middle-Eastern architecture. Its financiers went insolvent while construction was still under way, so the building contractor, Hutchinson, went into the cinema business. It was designed to be an 'atmospheric theatre' – meaning its ceiling evoked the night sky, with a pulley system of moving clouds, stars and planets. Cinema patrons would jump on passing trams to get a beer at the Paddo Tavern before returning for the remainder of their session. 'We have had people come in who claim to have been conceived in the theatre,' owner Suzy Baines says. The building hasn't screened films since 1962, but the proscenium arch still clings precariously to the far wall. There are ornamental balconies and columns. The front of the building is old-school opulent, and a plaque in the floor of the foyer carries the name of the theatre. If you close your eyes, you can smell the Jaffas. When TV came along and killed the cinema, it became an indoor basketball court, then sat vacant for 10 years. In 1985, two couples – Graham and Anne Hesse and John and Heather Mildwaters – bought it, opening the Paddington Antiques Centre. Suzy Baines enters the story in 2008. Baines had worked in PR, as a speech and drama teacher, and as a bookkeeper. She had just bought a new home and needed some furniture. 'My mother and I went on an antiques-buying trip to Eastern Europe and brought back a container of antiques with no idea what we were going to do with them. Then I happened to be in Paddington with a girlfriend. 'I saw the sign in the window saying 'business for sale' and within a week, I bought it.' Suzy Baines Baines had never been in business. Counterintuitively, she reasoned she needed to buy a large enterprise because, with three children to raise, she was too busy to run a small one. 'This is a seven-day-a-week business, so you have to employ staff, and that gives you greater flexibility. 'The best piece of advice I got was from one of my brothers: 'Don't change anything until you understand why it's been done the way it's been done.'' She took over just as the GFC hit, but didn't feel its impact. '[Second-hand] does well when times are tough because people perceive it as offering better value.' Baines, who runs Empire Revival in partnership with her daughter, Olivia, rents out spaces but centralises the sales and manages the staff, leaving vendors free to find their stock, price it and display it. 'Our business model, I think, is going to become more and more used because it enables people to do what they're good at and have somebody else take care of the things that can drag you down. 'It's not just that the model works really well for retailers today, it's such a great way to use these old spaces.' True to her word, Baines has found another old cinema – Murwillumbah's 1947 Regent Theatre – to expand the business later this year. The Regent even has a similar name plaque in its floor. (Baines also has a store called The Emporium in Kalbar in the Scenic Rim.) 'Anything that you did with it other than have it as an antique centre was going to involve compromising how people experienced the space,' she says. 'We'll be part of an arts precinct that has so much vibrancy and activity already. You're buying into a community, and I really like that.' One of the colourful identities of Paddington, Baines has a flamboyant sense of personal style, favouring outfits with big sleeves and strong colours. Wandering around the Empire Revival shopfloor, she stops at a bright-green, trimmed fur coat with an orange collar and cuffs. 'Oh wow, look at that,' she says. 'Amazing! I reckon it's '60s.' Vintage clothing was the focus of the annual fashion parades she held here some years back, models sashaying a full circuit of the 700-square-metre store. Diversifying into clothing and new items, such as upholstery fabrics and lampshades by Sachs & Cornish, prompted a name change for the Paddington Antiques Centre in 2018. 'I needed the flexibility to be able to move into things that were more representative of what people were looking for,' Baines says. Antique items are still a feature at Empire Revival, however. She introduces me to one of the longest-standing merchants, Wallace, who points out a stunning art nouveau mirror, dated at 1904 (sale price: $1500). Baines tells me about the time 10 years ago when a woman came in clutching a large object wrapped in a towel. 'Her brothers used to play cricket and use it as stumps. Somehow, this thing that was rolling around in the back of her car survived.' It was an art deco vase by the English ceramicist Clarice Cliff (1899-1972). Longtime stallholder Stan Prickett made inquiries and verified its value at about $40,000. Nowadays, the store runs an Antiques Roadshow -style valuation service one Sunday a month, with three experts giving their opinions in exchange for a gold-coin charity donation. In 2020, Baines converted a storeroom into a second-hand book depository called The Cupboard Under the Stage, and opened the Loft Gallery to artist exhibitions. To acknowledge the shop's 40th anniversary and the building's silver-screen past, an exhibition of vintage movie gear has been set up in the foyer, courtesy of local collector John Schindler: clapper boards, a hulking old camera, a jazz-era microphone on a stand. Baines shows me the southern side of the building, where Netty has been spotted browsing. 'Over the years, people will come in, usually women, and say: 'I can't be here. I can't be in this space. There are presences here', and they flee.' She pauses, at the space where Rosie Bates used to have a stall selling jewellery, collectibles and small furniture pieces. Bates was British, brought up in China, and had an excellent eye for antiques. A ferocious competitor at auctions, she worked at the centre well into her eighties, before dying about a decade ago. Loading 'She was the most crotchety old woman you can imagine. But very funny! 'She always got a cab in. One day she came in, cross as, and said: 'That cabbie wanted to know where I wanted to go!' 'One day I said to her: 'Rosie, your trackie is inside out.' She said: 'Yes, the other side is dirty.'' Baines laughs. 'It's an industry of characters.'
