An Outta-the-Ballpark Look at Baseball : ‘People Can Now Accept Women Who Are Strong,’ Susan Sarandon Says

Susan Sarandon’s career has been laced with empty-headed characters. Until “Bull Durham,” she seemed to be on her way to becoming a leading example of the performer whose good looks rule out the brainy parts.

But now the critically acclaimed romantic comedy may be changing all that. Set around a North Carolina Class A baseball team, “Bull Durham” is about a hotheaded young pitcher (Tim Robbins), a slightly over-the-hill catcher (Kevin Costner) and the eccentric woman they both love (Sarandon).

Critics have hailed Sarandon’s portrayal of Annie, the sassy, smart and sexy baseball fanatic as her best work yet, a role that may catapult her into the first-rank of leading ladies.

However, in order to be even considered for the part, the 41-year-old veteran of 23 films had to audition, something that many established actors only agree to do reluctantly for parts they hunger for. “It was a potentially humiliating situation,” she says. “A lot of people refused to audition.

“It’s strange. In order to keep your power and your price up, you have to play so many games. I don’t believe in being dictated to by those rules. If there’s something I really want to do, I find a way to do it. ‘Bull Durham’ was such an extraordinary piece.” She flew back from Europe just to audition. “But it took me 20 hours on the trip from Rome to calm down about being asked to read.”

When she got to Hollywood, though, she hit a grand slam.

“Bull Durham” writer-director Ron Shelton, who cast Sarandon on the basis of her audition, says, “Susan really inhabits the part. She has a brilliant comic sense that has gone either unrecognized or unutilized. People talk about ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ or ‘Atlantic City’ (for which she got an Oscar nomination), forgetting she has a great light touch.”

Jonathan Demme, who directed Sarandon in the critically acclaimed “American Playhouse” production of “Who Am I This Time?” a few years ago, recognized that quality when he decided to accept the job, based on her already being cast.

“If there’s anything Susan needs to be careful about, it’s bringing her incredible intelligence and talent to weak projects,” says Demme. “She’s not good in lightweight parts. She needs something weighty.”

Sarandon certainly found that something in “Durham,” which stands a lot of Hollywood’s preconceived notions on their heads: The hero is a professional failure and the heroine is sexy and intelligent.

“It is a tradition in Hollywood that if a woman is intelligent, she’s supposed to be cold,” Sarandon complains. “And if she’s sexy, she has to be dumb. Not very often are you allowed to mix the two.” That has been part of Sarandon’s own problems in Hollywood. Because she “mixes the two,” Hollywood often doesn’t know what to do with her.

“ ‘Bull Durham’ really restored my faith in the whole process,” she says with the intensity she brings to the role. “Annie is borderline outrageous.”

A college teacher with a lot of spare time, Annie is a fixture at the local baseball stadium. Baseball is her religion. Every year, she sees it as her duty to choose a new player to sleep with.

“Annie’s not a groupie,” Sarandon insists. “She’s definitely a high priestess. Anyone who goes with Annie has the best year of his career.”

Sarandon fought for the role of Annie, she explains, because “you don’t find many original people--men or women--in films. Kevin said he thought Annie was one of the all-time great heroes.

“In most films, women are valued because of their ability to suffer, to hang on and wait or to help the man through his ordeal. Or they are cherished because they’re tragic. I think that’s changing. People can now accept women who are strong and know who they are and who have a sense of humor. I think Annie is a heroic woman.”

While she’s at it, Sarandon would also like to redefine the heroic man. “Let’s take heroic out of the macho, Rambo-esque fantasies,” she says. “Why shouldn’t a heroic man be wise, thoughtful and nurturing?”

Sarandon tries to make movies that reflect her point of view. “I may not have control over whether my films are good or bad, but I certainly can turn down those with excessive violence, those that link sex and violence or those that propagate certain cliches about women. I think you can make a difference if you bring your own values to your work.”

Such assertiveness is not always welcomed on film sets, she admits. “There have been times when I have objected to something, and the reprimand has been, ‘Don’t get feminist on us.’ It had absolutely nothing to do with being feminist.

“I guess the lesson there is, if you’re outspoken, then you’re strident, and thus you’re being feminist. That’s a very uninformed, narrow view. Christine Lahti told me she got exactly the same reprimand.”

“Susan is an intelligent woman,” Shelton says, “and a lot of male directors are afraid of intelligent women.” Sarandon puts it another way. “I don’t think intelligence is the attribute that necessarily gets you in the door. But I think good directors and people interested in ideas will hire intelligent women.

“There are a lot of intelligent women out there--Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver, Diane Keaton, Barbra Streisand. This is a time when intelligent women can have ideas and take responsibility for them.”

Sarandon takes pleasure in saying “I never wanted to be an actress. I just fell into it. (She got her first job when she accompanied her then-husband, actor Chris Sarandon, to an audition for “Joe” in 1970.)

“Acting is an impossible job, so it’s very seductive. You can never do it exactly perfectly. You can constantly keep going back to it. It’s very satisfying to be part of something that makes people feel things. You’re a bit like the keeper of the dreams.

“Also, acting has helped me overcome a lot of my personal inertia. I was forced to find out about things I wouldn’t necessarily leave my little apartment to find out about.”

A bright, articulate woman who devotes a lot of her time to political causes, Sarandon does not like to be trivialized. The further away she gets from talking about the film business, the more animated she becomes.

“Now, I put just as much energy into trying to deal with things I feel passionately about: MADRE (an organization devoted to helping the victims of war in Central America); disarmament; AIDS cures, and the homeless. All these things have touched me personally. And I feel even stronger now that I’m a mother. (She has a 3-year-old daughter, Eva, by Italian director Franco Amurri, though her relationship with him has ended.)

“If my daughter hadn’t been given to me as a gift, I’d probably have gone further and further into political work because I was definitely at a point where I was looking to do something that made a difference. I don’t think you do find that in this job .”

She speaks on college campuses and helps raise money for causes she backs. During the recent vote on aid for the Contras, she stood among the demonstrators on the steps of the White House. “With celebrity status, you can do more than sell salad dressing and popcorn and get seats in restaurants,” she says.

“I find it endearing that men can become so emotionally involved with a sport that they actually cry in bars after a team loses, yet they don’t seem to be as concerned when we drop bombs on countries and people are actually being killed with their tax money.”

Next on Sarandon’s agenda is “A Dry White Season,” an anti-apartheid film co-starring Donald Sutherland and Marlon Brando being made in Zimbabwe. “The director, Euzhan Palcy, chose to put people in the movie who are politically active,” Sarandon says.

She has also completed two other films, “Sweethearts Dance” with Don Johnson and “January Man” with Kevin Kline. In “January Man” (written by Oscar-winning writer John Patrick Shanley), she was relieved to be able to play an unpleasant character for once.

“She’s a bitch,” Sarandon says, “a really cold, every-hair-in-place lady. She’s someone who’s very far from who I am. She’s very controlled and very mean. But I must say, it was so much fun not to have to bear the burden of sincerity.”