'Thelma and Louise': Where Are They Now? (original) (raw)

Thelma & Louise after all these years

MGM

It's been decades since Thelma and Louise first embarked on a road trip in a 1966 Thunderbird. Ridley Scott's iconic film, starring Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis, hit theaters on May 24, 1991, and has since been considered a feminist landmark. Screenwriter Callie Khouri won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and the film also picked up nominations for Scott, Sarandon, and Davis. Check out where the Thelma & Louise cast is now.

Susan Sarandon (Louise Sawyer)

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Sarandon was 20 years into a busy career when she played Louise, and her 1991 Best Actress nomination was her second in that category. In the four years that followed, she would get three more nods for Best Actress, finally winning the award for 1995's Dead Man Walking.

Her many film roles since Thelma & Louise include The Client (1994), Little Women (1994), Stepmom (1998), Enchanted (2007), and The Lovely Bones (2009). She also accumulated a multitude of TV credits and has been nominated for four Emmys, including for guest roles on Friends and Malcolm in the Middle. In 2017, she starred as Bette Davis in the anthology series Feud: Bette and Joan, and in 2022, she scored the lead role on Fox's short-lived series Monarch. Her other film credits include Xavier Dolan's The Death and Life of John F. Donovan (2018), John Turturro's Going Places (2018), Roger Michell's Blackbird (2019), and Tanya Wexler's Jolt (2021).

Sarandon is a noted liberal activist, lending her voice to various social issues and publicly supporting progressive politicians.

Geena Davis (Thelma Dickinson)

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Davis' star was rising fast when she played Thelma, and she had already won an Oscar (Best Supporting Actress for 1988's The Accidental Tourist) when she and Sarandon both picked up nominations for Thelma & Louise. Davis went on to star in a string of films in the '90s and 2000s, including A League of Their Own (1992) and all three Stuart Little films (1992, 2002, 2005). From 2005 to 2006, she starred on the political drama Commander in Chief, for which she won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Emmy. She appeared on the TV series The Exorcist, Grey's Anatomy, and GLOW, and starred in the films Marjorie Prime (2017) and Ava (2020).

Davis has also emerged as a vocal advocate for gender equality in the film industry, and has said that the reaction that Thelma & Louise received inspired her to fight for better—and more—representations of women on screen. In 2007, she founded the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, which promotes diverse projects and supports research about equality in the industry. (The institute received the Governors Award at the 2022 Emmys for its continued efforts in analyzing representation of marginalized identities in global media.) In 2015, Davis launched the Bentonville Film Festival, which curates a program of diverse and female-driven films. Furthermore, the actress' 2022 memoir, Dying of Politeness, discusses her journey in sexist Hollywood—she details her uncomfortable experience with former costar Bill Murray—and how she found strength in her roles while also fighting for women around the world.

Brad Pitt (J.D.)

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Thelma & Louise is a film of many gifts, among them its refreshing feminist leanings, its now-iconic finale, and, of course, Brad Pitt.

Pitt's appearance in the film—as a handsome thief who sleeps with Thelma, teaches her how to hold up a convenience store, and then steals all of her money—launched him to stardom, and he has appeared in a multitude of films, from indies to blockbusters, in the decades since. His '90s credits include Interview With the Vampire (1994), Se7en (1995), 12 Monkeys (1995), and Fight Club (1999); the 2000s brought Ocean's Eleven (2011)—and its 2004 and 2007 sequels—Troy (2004), Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005), and Inglourious Basterds (2009); in the 2010s, he starred in Moneyball (2011), World War Z (2013), Fury (2014), Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019); and the 2020s have brought The Lost City (2022), Bullet Train (2022), and Babylon (2022)—all among numerous others.

Pitt has become a powerful producer with his company, Plan B Entertainment, through which he has produced such films as Selma (2014), The Big Short (2015), Beautiful Boy (2018), Ad Astra (2020), Blonde (2022), and Best Picture winners 12 Years a Slave (2013) and Moonlight (2016). A four time Oscar nominee for acting, Pitt earned an Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in 2020 for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Michael Madsen (Jimmy Lennox)

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Since playing Louise's boyfriend Jimmy, Madsen has amassed over 300 film credits (many of them in independent films), including roles in Free Willy (1993) Species (1995), Donnie Brasco (1997), Die Another Day (2002), and Sin City (2005), and he has done voice acting for video games as well. He has appeared in five Quentin Tarantino movies so far: Reservoir Dogs (1992), Kill Bill—Vol. 1 and 2 (2003, 2004), The Hateful Eight (2015), and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Madsen is also an accomplished poet and has published several collections of his writing.

Harvey Keitel (Det. Hal Slocumb)

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Keitel, who first became known to audiences for his roles in the Martin Scorsese films Mean Streets and Taxi Driver in the '70s, played Det. Hal Slocumb in Thelma & Louise. Since then, he has been a busy actor, with such credits to his name as Bugsy (1991)—which earned him nominations for both an Oscar and a Golden Globe—Reservoir Dogs (1992), The Piano (1993), Pulp Fiction (1994), From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), Youth (2015), Isle of Dogs (2018), The Irishman (2019), Lansky (2021), and many more.

Christopher McDonald (Darryl Dickinson)

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Since McDonald played Darryl—Thelma's controlling husband—in Thelma & Louise, he has had an active career in both film and television. Some of his most notable roles since 1991 include playing Jack Barry in Quiz Show (1994), Shooter McGavin in Happy Gilmore (1996), Ward Cleaver in the 1997 movie version of Leave It to Beaver, and Tappy Timmons in Requiem for a Dream (2000). He has made appearances on numerous TV shows and had recurring roles on Boardwalk Empire, The Good Wife, Ballers, Hacks, and The Watcher, among other series.

Timothy Carhart (Harlan Puckett)

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Carhart played the small but crucial role of Harlan, Thelma's rapist whom Louise shoots and kills. Before Thelma & Louise, he appeared in various films over the course of the '80s, including Witness (1985) and Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), as well as on some TV shows. Since 1991, his film credits include Beverly Hills Cop III (1994) and Black Sheep (1996). He has been more active on television, where he has had recurring roles on 24, CSI, and Yellowstone, and appeared in episodes of The X-Files, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Law & Order, The Twilight Zone, and Frasier, among others.

Jason Beghe (State Trooper)

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Beghe played the state trooper who makes the mistake of pulling Thelma and Louise over for speeding. The character actor has appeared in a handful of films, including G.I. Jane (1997) and X-Men: First Class (2011), but has focused largely on television. He stars on Chicago P.D. as Hank Voight (and has appeared as the character on various other Chicago Fire spin-offs); has had recurring roles on shows including Californication, Melrose Place, and Everwood; and has appeared on Castle, Numb3rs, and Veronica Mars, among other series. A former Scientologist, Beghe made a YouTube video in 2008 publicly condemning the church, and has since emerged as one of the religion's most outspoken critics. He appeared in Alex Gibney's celebrated Scientology documentary Going Clear in 2015.

Stephen Tobolowsky (FBI Agent Max)

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Tobolowsky had a small part as Max, a member of Detective Slocumb's team tracking down Thelma and Louise. He had a handful of film roles before Thelma & Louise, and has since racked up over 200 film and TV credits as a wildly prolific character actor. His long resume includes roles in the films Basic Instinct (1992), Groundhog Day (1993), Memento (2000), Freddy Got Fingered (2001), Freaky Friday (2003), Garfield (2004), Wild Hogs (2007), and The Time Traveler's Wife (2009). On television, he has had roles on Glee, Heroes, Californication, The Goldbergs, and One Day at a Time, among others, and has made appearances on single episodes of a vast array of series.

Marco St. John (Truck Driver)

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St. John played the truck driver who harasses Thelma and Louise over the course of their trip—and pays for it in the end. He had worked in a steady stream of projects in the '80s before appearing in Thelma & Louise, and has been busy in the industry ever since. His film credits include Monster (2003), The Punisher (2004), Mr. 3000 (2004), and Novitiate (2017) and he has appeared on the TV shows Treme, Walker, Texas Ranger, and Suit Up, among others.