Elle’s Women in Hollywood issue comes out Oct. 17, and highlights the biggest names in the industry. But the magazine, who has been doing a Women in Hollywood issue for 24 years, also digs deeper into the women’s stories, like what it is like to portray relatable women, why traditional roles never worked for her as an actress, or which other women have influenced her career.
The full list comes out in the magazine, but Elle provided a teaser.
Jennifer Lawrence says that she worries about the work during the filming process, but after it’s finished, “it’s done for me. I’ve done my work, and I’ve gotten what I need to get out of it—I’ve fulfilled myself,” according to Elle.
Margot Robbie told Elle she never thought she’d want to be a producer, but she got to the point “where I felt like I was everyone’s puppet.” So she decided to start having a say in the art she was making.
Jessica Chastain created a production company, Freckle Films, and she told Elle that the company is for “finding and creating opportunities for women and minority groups that might not have an outlet, whether it be as a writer or an actor or a director.” She wants to help create stepping stones for others.
Cicely Tyson told Elle that she had a teacher named Vinnette Carroll at the very beginning of her career who taught her the importance of learning your craft, because when all else fails, “you will land on that, and that alone.”
Riley Keough told Elle that she wished she could find something more interesting to say about the sex scenes in The Girlfriend Experience, but she doesn’t “find nudity difficult.” She says Americans might feel differently, but she “wasn’t squeamish.”
Kathleen Kennedy said that though she doesn’t like to be in front of the camera, she is happy to be a role model for women to recognize they can make it in film, writes Elle.
Laura Dern told Elle about how in her twenties, the characters she was asked to play were limited by being “just a girl.” But now, she’s “having the time of her life” playing roles that are not a girl, but still haven’t figured everything out.
Tessa Thompson straight-forwardly discusses why traditional roles never worked for her, saying that “our ideas about what a young black person or a young Mexican person or a young white person should be like weren’t as expansive then as they are now,” according to Elle. She said that this made her feel like she had to fit in a box, but those roles “weren’t going to work for her.”
You can see the whole teaser list of Women in Hollywood here, on Elle, and the full list on Oct. 17.
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