Susan Sarandon

Susan Abigail Sarandon is an American actor and activist.

Sarandon began her acting career in the drama film Joe (1970), and in 1974, she co-starred in the television film F. Scott Fitzgerald and ‘The Last of the Belles‘. The following year, she starred as Janet Weiss in the musical comedy horror and biconic cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975).

Over the course of her extraordinary career, Sarandon has appeared in a staggering 170 films and series (and counting), including Atlantic City (1980), The Hunger (1983) (opposite David Bowie, who she dated), The Witches of Eastwick (1987), the bi movie Thelma & Louise (1991), Lorenzo’s Oil (1992), The Client (1994), Little Women (1994), Dead Man Walking (1995), Stepmom (1998), In the Valley of Elah (2007), Enchanted (2007), The Meddler (2015), and Blue Beetle (2023).

Sarandon’s list of acting awards and honors is every bit as voluminous, including One Academy Award (for Dead Man Walking) and another four nominations, nine Golden Globe nominations, six Primetime Emmy nominations, one Daytime Emmy nomination, and one News & Documentary Emmy nomination. Her work has also earned a BAFTA Award (and another nomination), the 2016 Cannes Film Festival Kering Women (for Motion Award, the Venice Film Festival’s 1982 Pasinetti Award for Best Actress in Tempest), a 2002 Star on the Walk of Fame, and even a Grammy nomination for a children’s book she narrated.

Sarandon has received dozens of lifetime achievement awards, including from the US Hollywood International Film Festival, CinEuphoria, the Stockholm Film Festival, the Shanghai International Film Festival, the San Sebastián International Film Festival, the Philadelphia Film Festival, the Palm Springs International Film Festival, the Munich Film Festival, the Satellite Awards, Germany’s Goldene Kamera, the Film Society of the Lincoln Center, and the Chicago International Film Festival.

Sarandon is also known for her social and political activism. In 1995, she was interviewed in the documentary The Celluloid Closet, which explored how Hollywood movies have portrayed LGBT people. She was appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1999 and received the Action Against Hunger Humanitarian Award in 2006. Also in 2006, Sarandon was a flag bearer at the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. An outspoken environmentalist and anti-war advocate, her uncompromising views have often placed her outside of the two-party political system in the US. Her repeated public support for third-party presidential candidates, in particular, has led to a contentious relationship between Sarandon and many mainstream progressive activists.

Sarandon identifies as bi. After having previously told Pride Source in 2017 that her sexuality was “open” and “up for grabs”, she went on to say in 2021, “I don’t care if it’s a man or a woman. I mean, I’m open to all ages, all colors. And those for me, those things are just details.” In 2022, Sarandon made it totally unambiguous when she appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, saying “I’m bi.”