Images and transcript courtesy of oprah.com, from the show Oscar® Legends

In the early 1990s, actresses Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon teamed up for the movie Thelma & Louise. Now, they’re joining forces once again for The Oprah Show!

Although it’s been more than a decade since they first met, Geena says she remembers the day well. “I had been cast in Thelma & Louise, and I didn’t know who was going to be the other person,” she tells Susan. “Then it was you, [and] it was, like, so amazing.”

Geena reveals that up until the moment she met Susan, she thought she could play the role of Thelma or Louise. “You walked in the room and immediately I was like, ‘I could never play Louise!’” she says.

Neither actress won an Oscar® for her contribution to that classic road-trip flick, but both have received Hollywood’s top honor for other roles.

A few years before Geena co-starred in Thelma & Louise, she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar® for her role in The Accidental Tourist. In the film, Geena played Muriel Pritchett, a quirky woman who gets entangled in a love triangle.

Since this was Geena’s first nomination, she says she had no idea how to gauge her chances of winning. The afternoon of the 1988 Academy Awards, Geena says she was sitting in front of her television eating spaghetti and saw Oprah on the screen with a panel of movie critics. “They were right in the middle of [discussing] the supporting actress category,” she remembers. “They’d gone [through] everybody, and then they got to me. Each one of the five said, ‘Oh, hopeless case. The least likely [to win].’”

Geena says she shrugged it off and went to the ceremony. A few hours later, she took the stage to accept the award!

Unlike Geena, Susan had to attend the Academy Awards® many times before she walked away a winner.

Susan received her first nomination in 1981 for the movie Atlantic City, which she starred in alongside Richard Gere. That year, Katharine Hepburn took home the best actress award.

Over the next 13 years, Susan was nominated for her roles in Thelma & Louise, Lorenzo’s Oil and The Client. Then in 1995, Susan received a nod for playing a nun in Dead Man Walking.

“Right before they announced the winner, Laurence Fishburne leaned over and said, ‘If you don’t win this, we’re burning the place down,’” she says. “So that kind of relieved the tension a little bit.”

Moments later, Susan finally received the statuette!

Geena and Susan may have played complete opposites in Thelma & Louise, but these days, the two actresses are leading parallel lives.

Recently, Geena married a man 15 years younger than her. Susan’s longtime partner, Tim Robbins, is 12 years her junior. Both women have two sons and a daughter and successful film careers. They’ve also managed to balance their personal and professional lives.

“It used to be, in the old days, you had to choose between a career and a family,” Susan tells Geena. “It’s been really great to see you … not be in a relationship where you had to minimize who you are. I could see that’s what you were struggling with when we first met. … [Guys] would choose you for your strength, and then they would not be able to deal with it ultimately.”

Geena says that’s a common problem for all women, not just Hollywood actresses. “It took a lot of practice to figure it out,” she says. “[I realized], ‘Oh, I see, I’m supposed to change. I’m not just supposed to change the guy.’”

“How did you finally do it?” Susan asks.

“Practice,” Geena says.