Surpassing:Geena Davis on her early gig as a living mannequin

In the 80s and Surpassing90s, Geena Davis created a string of iconic roles, from Beetlejuice to Thelma and Louise to A League of Their Own. Then, in the 2000s, she almost became an Olympic archer before dedicating herself to expanding roles for women in media. And now she's decided to risk it all on a radio quiz show.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tom Papa: Pretty much all of your roles have been iconic, but we heard one of your earliest acting gigs was at Ann Taylor. Is that right?

Yes! When I moved to New York, I immediately got a job as a sales clerk at Ann Taylor. And, one week, the window display had mannequins sitting at a little cafe table with with plastic food on in front of them. And I was all dressed up in Ann Taylor clothes and everything, so I said to my friends, "Hey, dare me to go and sit in that chair?" They said, "Yeah, go ahead, do it."

And soon, a crowd gathered with people walking by saying, "What are you looking at?" And everyone around said, "Just wait, just wait" Because they knew I had a blank at some point, which I did. And everybody went, "Wooo!"

Finally, the manager came by because there was so much noise, and said, "Geena, get out of the window!" But, then she realized how many people had gathered and she said, "Geena, stay in the window!"

They hired me every Saturday to be a mannequin.

Paula Poundstone: That's amazing. Did you ever take a bite of the waxed food?

I did not. But there was a restaurant on the third floor and a handsome waiter came down at one point and brought me a real lunch. And, he served it to me in the window. I . ended up marrying that guy.

Is that true? Did you really?

I literally did, yeah. Yeah. He was the first man I met in New York.

Tom Papa: That's a power move. I can't tell you how many times I've brought food to mannequins for that exact purpose