Rosie Perez is writing her first book with Random House that has yet to be titled, she announced at the closing night of Aussie Director Peter Weir’s retrospective at the Walter Reade Theatre Sunday night where Weir’s film, Fearless, was shown starring Jeff Bridges, Isabella Rossellini, Benicio del Toro and herself.  She is also producing a movie called The Fall of Rome.
If the book is autobiographical it will be a blast judging from her candor and colorful unedited openness during the Q&A after the screening of Fearless.
Perez told of how she got the role from Peter Weir when he interviewed her among other candidates.  When he asked her to cross herself she raced through the gesture as any Catholic school girl would have whereas all the other starlets crossed themselves slowly. “ Why did you do it that way?”   he marveled.   She shrugged:    “ Oh, nuthin.  That’s ‘cause I do it all the time.”   She had been exhausted from drinking 25 cups of coffee that morning which had her racing to the toilet so when he asked her to lie down on the floor, she practically collapsed into a deep sleep.
“My one and only experience promoting myself for an Oscar nod when I accepted to go to a Barbecue party at the house of a Mexican editor.   I thought a barbecue was overalls, so I wore mine and a tee shirt.  They had valet parking.  Are you kidding me?  They had a waterfall  at the barbecue.  So when I got out of my car, I was told ‘go  the kitchen’.  So instead of going in with the guests, I asked “Where is the kitchen?  I want to go to the kitchen!”  When I got there, the staff was all Latina.  It was all Mexicans here.  I stayed and ate crab cakes all night with them.  When they kept telling me to go to the party, I said:  “eff them!”  and they helped me pile bottles of champagne into my car.  And that was the end of my Oscar campaign!”
“Peter told me last night that he had to leave me alone (during and before the shoot).  He said it looked like I was fighting it.  I called him the day before filming because I felt he didn’t have confidence in me and I wanted to quit. He told me ‘don’t be ridiculous’.  Peter likes to do 12 to 20 takes but once I did it I told him ‘I can’t do it again.  I would be just faking it.’”
About Isabella Rossellini:  “we didn’t spend a lot of time together except in our scenes.  But in Europe, we were hot.  Forget about it Honey.  She showed me all over the place.  We had a fabulous time.  We were in Germany at the Beer Festival.”
Rosie says she misses acting but chose to produce an upcoming film and her book.

Rosie Perez at Walter Reade Theatre