Michelle Rodriguez doesn’t hold anything back — and now she’s using her trademarked honesty (uh, is it trademarked? It could be) to tackle the problem with writers and women in Hollywood.
Speaking at a junket for Fast & Furious 6 (yes, we’re on number six) she said:
It’s so hard to find really good writers. It’s a fairly new, last-twenty-year thing to have strong, independent, free-spirited women on film. Eighty percent of the writers are guys, most of them are married in Beverly Hills and they’re married to some woman who obviously annoys them or they wouldn’t write the way they write.
Not only that, she’s putting her money where her mouth is by currently working on three scripts — “one about drugs called Sedated; another about a secret society of women called Matriarch Society and a children’s movie about the environment called Kingdom Come.”
As far as the sixth (yes, sixth) Fast and Furious, Rodriguez has lots of opinions about how her character has evolved, and what women and men do and don’t respect in the ladies.
When asked about the her character and the characters of other women in the franchise (and movies, in general):
Oh my god, I was crying on the set. I was like, “Look, dude, I love you guys, I really want to be a part of this, but I can’t play a slut in front of millions of people around the world.” I’d rather go back to Jersey City, doing my small little indie movies. It’s not until now, post–Angelina Jolie, doing her thing as a woman who can actually bring box office, that you can make money with a woman who’s respectable and kicking ass in a movie. It changes the game for writers. Before there was no incentive for them to take the girl out of being captured or being the girlfriend. That tone was something that was set in the first one by me fighting Rob Cohen, to punch somebody and knock him out. I knew, in the streets, if your tribe was getting in a fight, it doesn’t matter if you’re a girl or a boy, you’re throwing a punch because that’s just the way the streets work.
She goes on to say that she’s all about girl power, and if you’re a girl who’s not bringing it, “it’s kind of pointless to me.”
Photo via AP