By Karl Quinn
Paul Feig likes to dress for the office – even if his office is typically a movie set.
When he was younger, the director of Bridesmaids, Spy and The Heat says, "I was obsessed with pictures of old Hollywood, I'd see Hitchcock and John Ford and Howard Hawks and they're all wearing suits and ties. When I watch a movie, I want to feel like that's how they look behind the scenes, not some guy wearing sweatpants."
Paul Feig, photographed at Sugar Republic in Fitzroy. Credit: Simon Schluter
His choice of attire, typically a three-piece suit, is a mark of respect for the people he works for and with, he adds. "You know, I'm the captain of the ship. I always say if I get on a ship and the captain's wearing sweatpants, I'll get off the ship."
Feig's latest vessel, the Emma Thompson-penned Last Christmas, sails into cinemas this week, and he's in Australia to talk it up.
As an aside, on Tuesday, he'll raise his sartorial flag as judge of the men's Fashions on the Field at Flemington. "I'm so excited to get to pass judgement on other men and how they dress," he says with a laugh that manages to seem good-hearted and menacing at the same time.
Feig was last here in 2011 with Bridesmaids, the film he credits with getting him out of "movie jail" after back-to-back flops. Back then, there was much chatter about the "riskiness" of making a female-led gross-out comedy, given the accepted, ahem, "wisdom" that women just aren't that funny.
The great surprise of his latest film is that Emilia Clarke (best known as Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones) is very funny indeed.
"She was so into it," he says of his star, who spends most of the movie – loosely based on the songs of George Michael – in an elf costume, "and she was great at it, because she wasn't trying to be funny.
"I can make anybody funny if they're not trying to be funny," he adds. "If they're trying to be funny it's all over, because they're working too hard. Trust the script."
Since Bridesmaids, Feig has gained a reputation as a women's director, having made successful comedies with Melissa McCarthy, Sandra Bullock, Anna Kendrick and others. But he also had the misfortune of being on the end of a sustained campaign against his gender-flipped reworking of Ghostbusters, which generated some of the most vitriolic, misogynistic and racist commentary social media has ever spawned.
Emilia Clarke as Kate, the dysfunctional elf in Last Christmas.Credit:
So, on balance, are things looking up or not?
"It's definitely gotten better," he says. "There's more opportunities for female characters but I always say we should not be celebrating yet because there's such a long way to go.
"Hollywood is not an altruistic town – they won't do anything they don't think will make money. It took Bridesmaids to make money and Wonder Woman to go through the roof and Captain Marvel...
"Now," he adds, "is when we need to be going hard at it, creating more great roles for women in movies and getting more opportunities for women behind the camera. It's a critical time."
Last Christmas opens nationally on Thursday.
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