Up until I was 10 I grew up in a religious commune [in Italy] called Children of God. But I didn’t believe anything they were telling me. It’s young to be so questioning but I saw that what people were preaching was not what they were doing. And it was such an intense society I got to see that hypocrisy very clearly, whereas most people get a watered-down version of it, so it takes them longer to catch on. I saw the way the men used their power over women and it made no sense to me. It still doesn’t make sense.
We escaped from the commune when I was 10 and moved to the United States. It was a rough time at home, with step-parents who weren’t very nice. I was very scared and traumatised. That’s when I invented my own planet, Planet 9, so I could escape this world and my reaction to America. I would shut my eyes and imagine my planet, and I would have melodies in my head which would soothe me. Looking back at it now I see it was a meditation, a way to astral-project out of my situation. If you could just shut your eyes and go to a better place with a beautiful energy… Why wouldn’t you go there?
When I was 15 I divorced my parents so I could have control of my life. I was homeless, I was on my own, and I was very lonely. I was entirely focused on just surviving. So when I started having relationships with men I wasn’t set up to understand that kind of world. A lot of older men were attracted to me, which at the time I thought was cool but now I think it’s creepy. I developed an eating disorder as a way of responding to the world being scary. So I could feel I was in control. Because the rest of the world seemed so wild and freaky. [McGowan got into a relationship with a man who put constant pressure on her to lose weight.] I’d like to go back to that young girl and put my arm around her. And punch that man on the nose.
If you met the 16-year-old me you’d think I was very adult for someone so young. But I was very witty and funny and warm. I knew I was very cute. And I was very precocious. I was very scared as well, but you can hide fear behind a lot of things. And I’ve always had this inner core of strength. I’ve always resented being afraid and my response is to lean in to the fear. I became used to doing that on my own. I knew I could go under any moment and I refused to.
I always knew I was destined for a big and strange life and I definitely wasn’t wrong. When I was 19 my boyfriend [music label exec Brett Cantor] had just been killed and I was standing on a street corner crying and a woman came up to me and asked me if I wanted to be an actress. It was a really brutal time. A really good person lost his life. It’s very hard to grieve someone who is murdered because it’s such a strange and big thing. I went into a deep depression. But I worked out if I did this movie [California Man, 1992] it would get me enough money to get an apartment, so I wouldn’t be homeless. And being homeless again was always the biggest terror for me. So I took my first acting job.
If I could give the younger me advice I’d say don’t go into Hollywood. I didn’t relate to the people around me. Their concerns were not my concerns, I had much bigger concerns. I wish I had known I was an artist earlier in my life, but Hollywood is kind of a cult which makes you think their way is the only way to do things. And since I didn’t know anything about any other industry I got stuck in this dog-eat-dog world. But now I don’t care what they say and I don’t care what they think. I have shut the door on working in Hollywood. And they have shut the door on me. And that’s OK because I’m an artist and when I was working in Hollywood I really felt that I was a commodity which wasn’t worth much. But I always thought I had something of value and I think Planet 9 – the visuals, the album and now the one-woman show – is a significant piece of work. I think my 16-year-old self would love it. This is the outlet she was looking for; it would be beautiful to let her know she would eventually find it.
