Kathy Bates and Gal Gadot Talk Sexism, Challenges at Comic Con Panel

Entertainment Weekly held their annual “Women Who Kick Ass” panel at Comic-Con. The guests included Kathy Bates from American Horror Story, Gal Gadot, who’s playing Wonder Woman in Batman v Superman, Gwendoline Christie who plays Brienne of Tarth on Game of Thrones, Jenna Coleman of Doctor Who and Hayley Atwell from Agent Carter. The women discussed female role models, physical challenges they’ve faced on set as well as discrimination in Hollywood.

Gadot, who starred in a couple of the male-dominated Fast and the Furious movies, said that she hasn’t faced much sexism, but did voice her opinion when she disagreed about certain choices for her character, Time reports. “For me, responsibility goes hand in hand with character development, and I was able to communicate the problems I had to the directors—all male directors,” she said. Christie, who names Sigourney Weaver in Alien as an inspiration, described one moment on the Game of Thrones set where she and co-star Rory McCann practiced a scene where she was supposed to fake-punch him in the groin. Right before the cameras started rolling, McCann told her “Do it for real,” and so she did. “What you see in that fight is genuine connection of fist and undercarriage,” she said.

Bates, who says she’ll be running the hotel in upcoming American Horror Story: Hotel, recalled the fight scene between her and James Caan in 1990’s Misery. “The hardest part was getting my head slammed into the floor,” she said. “I didn’t think I would cry at the end but I did.” According to EW, Coleman believes that the next Doctor Who could be a woman. “I think it’s absolutely possible,” she said. “There’s absolutely no reason why not.”

Atwell explained why there are shippers for her character Peggy Carter and Angie Martinelli, Lyndsy Fonseca’s character, on Agent Carter. “I think it’s quite rare on television these days in a scene together who aren’t talking about the men, having women who are genuinely loving each other, supporting each other, caring for each other and not in competition, not being catty.” Past participants for the Women Who Kick Ass panel have included Katey Sagal, Michelle Rodriguez, Sarah Paulson, Tatiana Maslany and Maggie Q.