The Story Behind The Runaways

The Story Behind The Runaways



Over in the States, The Runaways hit the Sundance Film Festival in January. Fittingly, Joan Jett performed live in Part City the evening before the premiere night.

For her part, Jett is happy with the finished product, seeing it as a movie about “following your dreams”.

“That good old cliché of following your dreams, because I really feel that people beat down other people’s dreams constantly,” she says. “I see it a lot with writers, when I talk to them about this.

"To me, I just think it’s really important to try and follow your dream. And if for some reason life takes you a different way, then at least you made an attempt.”

Now that Kristen’s a firm friend of Jett’s, does she feel that the singer’s happy with the way she lived her life? “She’s incredibly proud to be everything that she is,” the actress says. “I’ve never seen anybody walk into a room so completely innocently confident.

“She doesn’t realise that other people might not be like that and that’s a different – it’s not like overcompensation. It’s not like she’s trying to be a certain way, she just is.”

Cherie Currie, though is another kettle of fish. While she praises Fanning’s and Stewart’s work in the film, she has expressed dissatisfaction with the way Sigismondi played around with historical accuracy.

“Floria Sigismondi, this was her very first script, which [ticked] me off,” the chain saw artist gripes, "because I thought, 'OK, why couldn't I have had a part in writing this?'

“I couldn't understand how someone who wasn't there could even touch what it was like or the pivotal moments in The Runaways. But she's a very artsy director, so it's all about the visual and the impact that she, who didn't live it, felt would be important.”

Still, it’s been 31 years since The Runaways crumbled, and everybody involved in that hell-for-leather time has moved on (in some cases literally – Sandy West sadly died in 2006). Is there a happy ending to the real-life Jett-Currie story?

"I always went to her shows and supported her," Currie says. "Thirteen years ago when Joan and [her manager Kenny Laguna] called me, Lita and Sandy to sue Polygram and Mercury and Kim Fowley for our royalties that we never saw, that's when we started talking together.

“But it wasn't until this movie started that we rekindled our friendship. The forward Joan wrote in the book was surprising. I thought she wanted me out [of The Runaways]. Thirty-five years later, I find out that wasn't the case. Joan and I talk all the time and it's great to have her back in my life.”