..Angelina Jolie is a gorgeous and talented actress, but she was such a huge miscast for the role of Gia. Period. She has a striking, unforgettable face, yet did not capture the essence of who Gia really was. Gia was a lot of diffrent things to a lot of different people, but Angelina did not accurately portray any of those things. However, she did a great job as an actress, and I suppose that's all you can hope for.
The HBO movie was trash. Yup, thats right, trash! It left so much out and stretched the truth and embellished on Gia's story turning it into typical melodramatic Hollywood nonsense....
...
Believe it or not GIA was a model that was considered "ugly beautiful",
that sounds crazy given her beauty but after decades of same Cheryl Tiegs look, her thin lipped, no curves, all American girl next door look. But when Gia came with her ethic look and perfect breast, brown hair and dark brown eyes and full lips, and curvy hips,
she was like an attractive Drag Queen. And considered a sexual sensation....
This moment in time even the ugly girls who were not attractive in real life worked for top designers and celebrities because the main Vogue editors and the agents wanted BIG HIPS and FULL LIPS and the bigger the better, skinny and blonde was out and brunette and voluptuous was in.
I was close friends with D Cohen ( hat designer) who knew Gia from the age of 15 in philly when he would party at this one gay club called "Oz" that was entirely Judy Garland themed.
He told me she was a tomboy and wore smelly clothes and would not wash her hair in weeks and wore a dirty tee and jeans and when they walked down the street on Gia's "Go-Sees", but men would still stop in shock and whistle at her. For the time, her beauty was something that was unreal.
...But
Gia didn't really care much about the glamour surrounding her, she didn't even like being a model.
We felt sorry for Gia, even before she made it big,
she was always lonely and always by herself much of the time and in a HUGE amount of pain, that no one could fix. She would drive across town in the middle of the night just to get a hug. It was very sad.
She was also an extremely sweet person but had a bad temper. If you made her mad, you had better run!
...
Despite looking so feminine in her fashion photos, Gia was really tough and butch in person; a big ole bull dyke. She was very street smart in spite of being a poser who came from a rich neighborhood but told everyone she was from the ghetto. She always carried a switchblade knife with her and walked like a truck driver and swore like a sailor. Her few shows ( Perry Ellis ) were funny in a sad way,
she had to learn how to walk in high heels and hated it, yet she was on the cover of Vogue that season wearing Ellis ( pink hand knit sweater I think). Polly M and Patty H loved her because she was so new and different, being a brunette in a blonde hair blue eyes dominated industry. She was praised in the same way model Esme was a few years earlier for her thick dark brows. It was a time to love away from the typical ford model norm.
...The other models however hated Gia, mostly cause she was gay and for a short while, more successful. They hated the fact a Lesbian was more successful, and beautiful than them. Especially one who hadn't been in the biz that long. It got so bad,
Gia had to be separated from the other girls who she would send flowers to, she would flirt with the other models and hit on them, and the models would freak out and complain to the agents. One girl even broke out in hives she was so flipped out...
I dislike when people make snarky or callous remarks about Gia, like she deserved to die or something because of her recklessness. Yes, Gia was a MESS, but she certainly wasn't the only one in that troubled place and time. Gia wasn't the only model who used drugs, she wasn't the only model who had a bad reputation or showed up late, if at all. Gia was just rather, unlucky. But
definitely not unique when it came to self destructiveness. There were plenty other girls who were just as physiologically messed up as Gia was, AND THEN SOME! Some models even committed suicide. Gia was not the only girl in the business with serious mental issues and inner demons. They almost want to make it seem like Gia was some big ole Italian, Lesbian junkie who was beautiful yet tragically careless, which is not true. There were times when Gia was
surprisingly very boring to be around. She wasn't that intelligent, she wasn't "too good for this world". Gia was just at the right place at the right time, and then at the wrong place at the wrong time, basically.