After Geena Davis won Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards in 1989 for her role in The Accidental Tourist, she says she had a “rocky start” with two directors in particular. “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,'” she said.
Despite what these directors thought, Davis says she didn’t let the win go to her head. “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. 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.'”
Davis said these directors treated her this way without having met her. “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.”
She added, “They wanted to make sure I knew my place, and maybe … it probably wouldn't happen to a man.”