Susan Sarandon Reveals How Cher Stole Her Part at BAM Retrospective

Susan Sarandon was supposed to be Cher -- that is, she was supposed to have Cher's part in the movie the two did together, The Witches of Eastwick. Sarandon revealed how her part got switched on her and what she did about it during her film retrospective at BAM.

"Michelle [Pfeiffer] and I were first cast," Sarandon said, "and I'm playing Alex, the one who has the most scenes with Jack [Nicholson]. They hadn't cast the last person yet, but I'm doing fittings already."

Then, the actress said, she got a phone call from the film's director George Miller. "How would you like to play Jane?" he asked her. "No," she said. "We're getting ready to start, and she's supposed to play an instrument, and I've never played an instrument. She doesn't have any scenes, and I want scenes with Jack." "And he goes, 'OK, just asking,'" Sarandon said. "Right."

But when she arrives back from a trip to Italy, Sarandon discovered that she had been replaced by Cher, who was now playing the part of Alex, and she's to play the part of Jane. "I can't leave, beause they'll sue my ass," she said, "and I have to learn to play the cello."

Disappointed because her character doesn't have much to work with -- "nothing happens from the middle of the script to the end with her" -- Sarandon sat in rehearsals, "listening to Cher complaining about my part." (To be fair, she said, Cher was "really sweet" and loaned her a dress and a wig from her TV show, since she didn't get a new costume).

"I'm miserable, and I decide, 'What's the good part about a part that doesn't exist? You can do anything,'" she said. "Because there's no line that says where she ends up. So I decide she's the one who loves [Nicholson's character Daryl Van Horne] the most."

Though Sarandon had the approach to her character worked out, she still had the not-so-easy task of playing the cello in front of her. She took lessons, but even her then-18-month-old daughter Eva knew it was hopeless. "Every time she saw the woman arriving to teach me how to play this thing, she would cover her ears and run for cover," Sarandon said. "I thought, 'This is not happening in two weeks. We have to figure something out.'"

Desperate, she learned not to play the cello, but to how to appear as if she were. She soaked her bow so it would bend more, and applied it to the instrument as if it were a dance, "up, down, two steps over, one step back," she said.

"I understood nothing about music," Sarandon said. "I couldn't read music. I just watched a lot of Yo-Yo Ma. But if you're going to stay, you have to make the best of it somehow."