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Madonna · S3 E7
Desperately Seeking Susan
The film that made her a movie star almost by accident — $6 million at the box office and a role she didn't write
A screening room in Manhattan, spring 1985. Director Susan Seidelman watches the dailies and realizes she has a problem: the actress in the supporting role is pulling focus from every scene, and Rosanna Arquette, the actual star of the movie, is about to disappear.
"Who's That Girl", official music video (1987). Two years after Desperately Seeking Susan, Madonna stars in a second film and writes the title song. The movie flops but the song goes to number one. Hollywood wants her on screen but does not know what to do with her.
The $6 Million Accident
Desperately Seeking Susan is not supposed to be a Madonna movie. It is a screwball comedy starring Rosanna Arquette as a bored housewife obsessed with a mysterious woman named Susan. Madonna is cast because Seidelman sees her on MTV and recognizes something the camera wants. The budget is $5 million.
“She is not an actress, she is a star. An actress disappears into a role. A star makes the role disappear into her.”
— Susan Seidelman
TAP TO REVEAL: What costume detail from the film became a cultural phenomenon?
In Desperately Seeking Susan, Rosanna Arquette's character first discovers Susan through a specific medium. What is it?
Pretender
A forgotten album cut that sounds like it could be Susan's theme song. The lyric is about faking your way through the world until the world starts believing you. That is the Desperately Seeking Susan story in miniature.
She has conquered the charts, MTV, and the box office, all by age twenty-six. Next season: the backlash begins, a marriage to Sean Penn turns volatile, and Madonna discovers the same media machine that built her is perfectly happy to tear her apart.
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