Academy Award Winner Emma Thompson has just criticized Hollywood and the acting industry in general, saying it is more sexist than when she first started out in the industry almost three decades ago.
She told Radio Times Magazine:
"I don't think there's any appreciable improvement and I think that for women, the question of how they are supposed to look is worse than it was even when I was young. So, no, I am not impressed at all. I think it's complete sh*t actually."
Thompson bemoans the lack of progress made during her time industry and wonders if concrete change will ever really come:
"When I was younger I really did think we were on our way to a better world and when I look at it now, it is in a worse state than I have known it, particularly for women and I find that very disturbing and sad."
Thompson, whose credits include Sense and Sensibility and The Remains of the Day, is set to star as a 77 year old prostitute in her next film "The Legend of Barney Thompson." Opposite Robert Carlyle. However she says even the casting of that role is problematic:
"It is a bit ageist," said Thomson. "It would be really nice to get someone who is actually 77 to play her, but it's a wildly comic role and I couldn't resist."
Thompson is trying her hardest to champion young female performers and hopefully pave a path for a more inclusive industry than the one she grew up in:
"So I get behind as many young female performers as I can and actually a lot of the conversations with them are about exactly the fact that we are facing and writing about the same things and nothing has changed, and that some forms of sexism and unpleasantness to women have become more entrenched and indeed more prevalent."
the full transcript of the interview is available in The Guardian.
