Susan Sarandon is not going to be a typical grandmother. When the Thelma and Louise star’s first grandchild is born, likely next month, there’s no way it will be calling her Nana, she says adamantly. She will be known as Honey.
“My hairstylist said it’s a Southern thing, and I thought, that’s kind of fabulous,” she explains. “I like that. ‘Honey, come over here.’ ‘Where’s Honey?’ That’s the plan.”
The arrival of daughter Eva Martino’s first child marks a new stage of life for the star – but if anyone expects the 67-year-old to take up knitting, they’d be sorely disappointed.
Instead, Susan is experiencing something of a career revival, with six films in production this year. She’s still regularly voted one of Hollywood’s sexiest actresses, and she’s a staunch liberal activist who describes herself as a “stoner” and wishes to see marijuana legalised.
“I’m always looking for things that frighten me,” Susan confides.
In the past few years, she found plenty – most notably, splitting from her partner of 23 years, Tim Robbins. But it was the overly comfortable ease of the relationship that became too much for Susan, who says she’s never been able to do “cosy” well. And so she embraced being single at 62 with “terror and excitement in equal parts”.
“Being single was a traumatic experience but I [realised] it can shake you out of your complacency,” she says. “One of my strongest talents is being able to change directions when something crosses my path that I didn’t plan on.”
Susan with her much younger boyfriend Jonathan Bricklin.
Susan, who has sons Jack (24) and Miles (21) with Tim, is now happily dating 37-year-old businessman Jonathan Bricklin, though she refuses to call him her boyfriend, instead refering to him as her “collaborator” when they first got together last year.
“I now say we are a work in progress,” she says coyly.
Her life has turned out exactly as it shouldn’t have, she admits. Growing up in a staunchly Catholic family, Susan left home at 17 and married her childhood sweetheart Chris Sarandon at 20, so they wouldn’t get kicked out of their Catholic university.
Acting was never part of the plan – she only went to uni to get out of her native New Jersey, and simply “fell into everything”.
It’s her mistakes, she declares, that have made her who she is, and she’s not scared to say she’s enjoyed making the majority of them.
“I welcome them. I am always disappointed if I start repeating [them]… but I would like to make my mistakes faster and then ensure I don’t repeat them.
That said, things that have been a disaster have ultimately been the greatest lessons.”
Her dazzling career – in which she’s played every character from a prostitute to a nun – has now led the Oscar-winning actress to Tammy, where she’s been “aged up” to play Melissa McCarthy’s “pill-popping, alcoholic, fun-loving granny”, an experience that didn’t faze her until she saw photos of herself in character, complete with dowdy clothes, grey wig and prosthetic feet to simulate swollen ankles.
“I saw all these funny faces, [and] I did think to myself, ‘I hope this is better when I am moving!’”
But getting older doesn’t bother Susan. Apart from one small liposuction operation under her chin a few years ago, she’s gone completely surgery free. “There’s nothing worse than a 50 or 60-year-old trying to look 22,” she says.
Despite her views, Susan admits ageing does cost women work in the acting industry. “When people say, ‘Do you think you’ve lost work because of your politics?’ I say, ‘No, you lose work because you get old and fat!’”
Somehow, however, she’s bucked the trend, with both her career and personal life flourishing. The secret? Taking responsibility for her own life.
“There are times when I did see myself as a victim. That’s why I don’t tend towards doing that now… You just have to accept that being hurt is a part of life, and decide where you want to go.”
