Elizabeth Banks: Charlie’s Angels needs to be a box office smash
Elizabeth Banks is a rising force in Hollywood who has worked on some big box offices hits. But she’s feeling the pressure with the reboot of female-led action flick Charlie’s Angels, saying the movie has to make money. Here’s why.
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American director and actor Elizabeth Banks is unashamed in her love of Australians.
“Two of my favourite people are Rebel [Wilson] and Ruby [Rose],” gushes Banks, who worked with the two Aussies on the hit Pitch Perfect series.
“Rebel is funny – just comedically, a genius. There’s absolutely no one like her, and she’s opened doors for body positivity in Hollywood, without doubt,” Banks tells News Corp Australia at a mid-town hotel in New York.
“And Ruby is just so kick-ass … I just want to watch her kick-ass. I loved her in the John Wick movie and I am so excited to see her in Batwoman– I think she’s perfect! Also, she has a real sense of self, which I think is very empowering for people.”
Rose, it must be said, wouldn’t look out of place in Banks’ new iteration of Charlie’s Angels, which stars Kristen Stewart and two relative unknowns, Naomi Scott and Ella Balinska, in the title roles.
Banks, who says the film is not a reboot, but a “continuation” of the 1970s TV show and the wildly popular Drew Barrymore/Cameron Diaz/Lucy Liu films of the early 2000s, wrote, directed and produced the film.
Somehow, she also found time to star in the high-energy flick as one of three Bosleys. Patrick Stewart and Djimon Hounsou are the others. (In the film, Bosley is a rank, not one person.)
In person, Banks is engaging and thoroughly down to earth; she introduces herself as “Liz” and, shockingly, does not have a single minder/PR/assistant in the room with her.
This, as far as these managed-to-within-an-inch-of-their-lives Hollywood interviews go, is unheard of.
But Banks likes to do things her way.
Despite a successful acting career in films such as The Hunger Games (as Effie Trinket) Magic Mike XXL, W. (as Laura Bush) and a scene-stealing recurring role on 30 Rock, she started her own production company “to take control of my destiny”.
“I wanted to determine how I spend my time,” she says.
But why Charlie’s Angels now? Banks’ answer is surprisingly pragmatic.
“I wanted to work on an action movie, and I wanted to tell a story about women working together,” she muses.
“You want to watch them go under cover, be fabulous, live their best lives, and just work together and Charlie’s Angels represents that. It’s just built into the DNA of it. So as a producer and a businesswoman, it’s much easier getting the green light than writing my own action movie starring a bunch of women working together.”
The 44-year-old Banks grew up watching re-runs of the iconic 1970s TV show with her two sisters.
“I was always Kate Jackson – the relatable one,” she says, with a laugh.
The show had a lasting impact on her.
“I knew very early on, even back then when I was watching it, that I was watching professional women. And I wanted to be a professional woman,” she says.
“So the idea of being able to watch professional women who were beautiful, aspirational, and doing a job that men typically do, I knew all of those things were kind of revolutionary when I was watching that show.”
The revolution, however, hadn’t crossed generations.
When she sat down with Stewart, Scott and Balinski, prior to filming, she had to give them something of a television history lesson.
“The actresses in the movie had NO IDEA what the TV show was,” laughs Banks, eyebrows raised. “So I had to be like, OK, here’s who Farrah Fawcett is, here’s who Jaclyn Smith is, they basically had no idea.”
Still, the Angels legacy runs deep. Drew Barrymore is as an executive producer. (“Very hands off,” says Banks. “Not in a bad way. More in a ‘Make it your own’ way!”)
And Jaclyn Smith surprised the cast and crew by visiting the set. Banks cried.
“I really feel like I wouldn’t be here making this movie if she hadn’t been a part of [the show] and it hadn’t been as iconic as it was and the idea that we were keeping the legacy of it alive this far into the future, it was all very emotional, very special.”
Still, the director is aware that, in an age of streaming, “getting people off their couches to pay a babysitter, buy dinner, buy popcorn” is a tough ask.
“Look, people have to buy tickets to this movie, too. This movie has to make money,” she says, plainly.
“If this movie doesn’t make money it reinforces a stereotype in Hollywood that men don’t go see women do action movies.”
“They’ll go and see a comic book movie with Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel because that’s a male genre. So even though those are movies about women, they put them in the context of feeding the larger comic book world, so it’s all about, yes, you’re watching a Wonder Woman movie but we’re setting up three other characters or we’re setting up Justice League.”
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She pauses, as if she’s said too much.
“By the way, I’m happy for those characters to have box office success, but we need more women’s voices supported with money because that’s the power. The power is in the money.”
As such, Banks sees herself continuing the legacy of famed actor-directors like Warren Beatty, Robert Redford, Jodie Foster and Penny Marshall.
“All those people realised they could do both. There was this whole generation, just like us now,” she says, pointing to peers, Greta Gerwig, Olivia Wilde, John Krasinski and Bradley Cooper.
“That said we’re in charge of Hollywood; we’re the stars. We can do it. We have to take control of this. And I feel like I’m part of a new class that feels the same way. Like it’s our time now.”
Charlie’s Angels opens on Thursday.