SALON

Wednesday, Dec 12, 2012 7:15 PM UTC

Susan Sarandon expands ping pong empire to L.A.

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Susan Sarandon expands ping pong empire to L.A.This Dec. 11, 2012 photo shows hotelier André Balazs, left, and actress Susan Sarandon at the opening of SPiN ping pong club at The Standard Hotel in Los Angeles. The newest SPiN club takes over the entire second floor of the trendy Standard Hotel in downtown L.A., boasting a custom-designed red table as its centerpiece. Professional instructors are available to teach the basics to those who didn't grow up with a table in their basements and to help amateurs perfect their skills. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)(Credit: Jordan Strauss/invision/ap)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ping pong is having a moment, thanks in no small part to Susan Sarandon.

The Oscar-winning actress and self-described “ping pong propagandist” envisions a nation of table-tennis players. To that end, she’s the famous name behind SPiN, a series of “ping pong social clubs” that opened its latest location in Los Angeles Wednesday. There are also clubs in New York, Toronto and Milwaukee.

The newest SPiN club, a partnership between Sarandon and famed hotelier Andre Balazs, takes over the entire second floor of Balazs’ trendy Standard Hotel in downtown L.A., boasting a custom-designed red table as its centerpiece. Professional instructors are available to teach the basics to those who didn’t grow up with a table in their basements and to help amateurs perfect their skills.

Sarandon, 66, has been giving ping pong tables to friends and to inner-city schools since she helped open the New York club in 2009, and she talked with The Associated Press about her ping pong mission.

___

AP: What led you to become such a ping pong enthusiast?

Sarandon: I am more a propagandist than a player. I love the game because it cuts across gender and age and body type, and you can play it until you die, unlike other sports that you have to abandon at a certain point. It’s a great family game because little girls can beat their fathers. It’s a great dating tool because, you know, rather than just sit and drink and be awkward, you can face each other and have music playing, so it’s a pretty easy sell. … The definition of the club is a community of people who get together to socialize, philosophize and exercise around this little ball. So that’s what we were trying to tap into.

AP: How often do you play?

Sarandon: There was a time when I wasn’t working as much. I had a foot injury but I could still stand behind the table and play, and then I was there a lot. But lately I haven’t been playing that much at all, because I have been all over the place. And that’s what’s great about the social network — once we get clubs up everywhere, if you find yourself in another city, you can just go on the social network and find people to play. So it’s a social network that actually has a brick-and-mortar component to it.

AP: How different are the clubs city to city?

Sarandon: We have certain elements that make up what we’re trying to do, certain design components, but really, it’s all different depending on what kind of drinks are served more often in Milwaukee as opposed to New York, or how much a table would be in those cities. We hope that people have a space that’s very individual and have elements that are very special, and then you work with them to embrace those elements. The club in Dubai is going to be unlike anything we’ve done before. … They’re going for the most expensive table in the world, which is going to be gold plated.

AP: Are you doing a ping pong movie?

Sarandon: Isn’t that hilarious? Yeah, the ping pong movie is a very indie project but it was really fun to do. It’s basically, I guess you could say it’s “The Karate Kid” with ping pong, and I’m Mr. Miyagi.

___

AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen is on Twitter: www.twitter.com/APSandy .

___

Online:

http://losangeles.spingalactic.com/

More By Sandy Cohen.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Paul Krugman’s right: Austerity kills. "In an economy where we’re all in the same boat, one person’s spending is another person’s income. So when the government cuts spending, it reduces people’s income, leading to less business, more unemployment, and a vicious spiral of slowing down the economy."
273 points274 points | 246 comments
vote
FBI reportedly joins Bachmann campaign finance probe
248 points249 points | 18 comments
vote
Jon Karl makes things worse: He regrets “inaccurate” Benghazi email but says his story based on it “still entirely stands.” Really. ABC News?
216 points217 points | 31 comments
vote
“Jodorowsky’s Dune”: The sci-fi classic that never was.
81 points82 points | 16 comments
vote
Austerity Kills: Brian McArdle, a 57-year-old man who had had two strokes and could barely walk, was found "fit for work" by a government subcontractor, and had his benefits stopped. He died the next day.
90 points91 points | 7 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations