Elizabeth Banks: Hollywood wants to hear from women

 
Director’s chair: Elizabeth Banks (Picture: Larry Busacca/Getty Images)
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Louise Jury14 May 2015
The Weekender

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Elizabeth Banks today said Hollywood is still dominated by men telling men’s stories — but that they want more women to be heard.

The Hunger Games actress has just added directing to her list of credits with Pitch Perfect 2, the sequel to the 2012 hit musical comedy, starring Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson, about a college girls’ a cappella group.

Banks, who also produced the film, said women who acted and directed were in “a very small club”, mainly because tradition dictated that “it’s always been done like this and they are, frankly, afraid to do something else”.

But she added she had “felt a real outpouring of support from film directors — mostly male because that’s mostly who’s doing it — with this endeavour and all of them say, ‘We need more women to tell stories’. If only men are telling the stories, you can understand why they’re mostly telling stories they relate to.”

“I love doing it as an actor but I felt like I was under-used and had more to offer in the only business I have ever worked in.”

She added: “I don’t think there are any limits because I’m a woman. The limits are to do with making money. The movie has to make money.”

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She said the appeal of Pitch Perfect was it was about “a group of oddballs who are a team and a lot of people can relate to the idea of teamwork”.

Among its fans were professional athletes who saw it as a sporting film because of the a cappella contests, she said: “It’s a competition movie... There’s nothing particularly girly in our movie. You could replace every character with a boy.”

Banks, 41, said she was very proud of the film but it would never win an Oscar: “Making people laugh consistently for two hours in the cinema is a true feat and it requires a lot of skill. But it doesn’t get the accolades. People don’t consider it serious because the material is not serious — but the work that goes into it is absolutely serious.” @Louise_Jury

Pitch Perfect 2 is in cinemas on Friday.

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