"Natural speed please."
~~Susan Sarandon Finds Her Grandmother,
And In Doing So, Finds Herself(Part-2)~~~~~~~
2010.6.20
Sarandon assumed it was just too painful for her grandmother to reach out and try to find those children that were stripped from her. She also lied about her age when she got married, which made things tougher for her to be found but also, Sarandon thinks, was probably a way for her to move on from the atrocities of her past and try to reinvent herself in a way.
Reinvention is something that is key for an actor, and Sarandon admitted that in learning about her grandmother through this show's arc, she has found similarities between them. "Some of the tenacity and curiosity that Anita had, I feel I've inherited. And certainly there is some physical resemblance," she said.
But what was best for her throughout this whole experience was that it "gave my mother a little bit more peace of mind to have a sense of what happened...We had vague notions of early beginnings on that side of the family, but it was nice to finally have some sense of closure."
Therefore, Sarandon would recommend this process to anyone looking to track down a long-lost family member or even a friend. "I think it's important, especially for our kids, to have a sense of where they came from. And it's funny because we're dealing with so many immigration issues in the world, and we forget that we're a nation of immigrants! It's really wonderful to be able to reflect on how difficult it was and how brave they were to come here-- most of the time without even the language, and with very few resources.
Certainly, I think they were people who would have preferred to stay where their family support system was, but they migrated because they were escaping very, very difficult, bleak times."
Sarandon's episode of Who Do You Think You Are? is the second to last for the season and airs tonight at 8pm only on NBC. Sarandon will also be co-starring in HBO's original movie, You Don’t Know Jack, as one of Dr. Jack Kevorkian's closest friends on April 24th.
http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2010/04/23/susan_sarandon_finds_her_grandmother_a ♪
