Mary Elizabeth Winstead is an incredibly well-known and respected actress, having starred in many successful and massive projects, like Harley Quinn: Birds Of Prey, Kate, Final Destination 3, and most recently, her work in the extremely anticipated Star Wars series, Ahsoka. Playing roles that showcase extremely complex, versatile, and intriguing characters, the actress has made a name for herself being incredibly skilled at portraying them.
During an interview, Winstead talked about what type of characters she leans toward when picking up roles, as well as the type of characters she looked up to when growing up.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead Talks About Aliens And The Effect It Had On Her
According to IMDb, Mary Elizabeth Winstead once talked about how she is not a big fan of the fact that a lot of times when we see powerful female fighters, they usually have some sort of superpower that can be used as an excuse for their skill. She mentioned that she prefers it when the female characters as simply themselves, without any extra help, and fight just as well.
“It seems like when women are kicking ass it’s because we have some superpower. What’s so great about Ripley, from Alien (1979), is that she’s just a kick-ass woman. For younger women like myself growing up in the 1980s, to see something like that was really empowering so I really want to find roles like that for that same reason, so that other girls will be able to say, “Wow, she is a totally relatable woman who’s able to be strong and kick butt.”
Using an example, she talked about the iconic 1979 film, Alien, specifically talking about Ellen Ripley. She stated that growing up, she loved the fact that she was able to be such a good fighter without having any sort of superpowers. She mentioned this helped her decide the type of characters that she wanted to play, adding that she also wanted young girls to look at her the way she looked at Sigourney Weaver’s character.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead Thinks Bridesmaids Was Revolutionary
It would seem that talking about the way women are portrayed in media and specifically cinema is something Mary Elizabeth Winstead is very passionate about, speaking on a similar subject. This time, according to IMDb, the actress talked about the iconic 2011 film, Bridesmaids, starring Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, and Rose Byrne. The actress explained that she thinks that this particular film was revolutionary at a time when women were solely portrayed by the male gaze.
“Hollywood really still is a boys’ club, unfortunately. Everything is from a male perspective. When Bridesmaids (2011) came out it was like this huge revolution, the fact that here was a comedy about women and written by women. It’s sad that it had to be such a big deal. Even though there are amazing female directors and executives it is still really off-balance.”
She added the reasoning for this being the fact that it was a comedy film about women, made by women and had the target audience as women. She then went on to state that she thinks it’s unfortunate that something as simple as this has to be made into a bigger thing simply because of the way the film industry works, adding that there are a lot of exceptionally talented female directors who deserve more attention.
Source: IMDb
