|
Now the Oscar-winning actress plays one Hollywood's notorious
gossips columnist Hedda Hopper in drama "Trumbo," out in U.S.
theaters on Friday. The film focuses on the 1947 Hollywood
Blacklist, where ten screenwriters and directors including
Dalton Trumbo (played by Bryan Cranston) were shunned and in a
few cases, jailed, for their associations with the Communist
party.
Mirren, 70, talked to Reuters about Hopper and how women in
Hollywood need to be less polite.
Q: What drew you to Hedda Hopper?
A: I thought that power and that voracity and that meanness and
the shamelessness of it - there are female journalists to this
day who display similar sort of spirit. There's a certain kind
of woman who goes a certain kind of route in journalism.
Q: She's really the villain of this story, bringing the mob
mentality against Hollywood's communists. How did you understand
her motivation?
A: Hedda was right in the center of the mass of the vast
majority of American thinking. She wasn't an anomaly or a cult,
she wasn't the Tea Party or a side issue, she was right where
people were, coming out of the Second World War, and she
understood her public very well.
Q: But then she used her power to manipulate?
A: She absolutely felt she was being patriotic, as John Wayne
did.
Q: You've often been outspoken on the role of women. Is there a
shift happening now for women in film?
A: I've said it ever since I was 25 - look to change the role of
women in life, and as night follows day in my profession, on
television, in theater, on film, the roles for women will
change, and that's absolutely happened. Finally, it's taken a
long time.
I think writers are just beginning to catch up, and I've always
said, it's easy to write a woman's role. Just write a man's role
with a woman's name, and of course they're doing that now,
finally.
Q: What were your thoughts on Jennifer Lawrence's essay on the
gender wage gap in Hollywood and how women should be confident
to ask for more?
A: I thought it was fabulous. I loved it, it was very personal
and she's right. We are too polite as women.
(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Jill Serjeant and
Marguerita Choy)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
|
