Actress Elizabeth Debicki talks challenging Hollywood sexism and working with director Steve McQueen in Latest ES Magazine
This week’s issue of ES Magazine, out Thursday 8th February
Elizabeth Debicki talks exclusively to ES Magazine about how she intends to deal with next level fame and what it was like to work with iconic director, Steve McQueen, in her latest project Widow.
The actress opens up about her early teenage years and why Hollywood needs to hire more women to make, direct and produce films.
Interview highlights
On working with legendary director, Steve McQueen [I ask her whether the film — which, among others, co-stars Viola Davis, Liam Neeson, Colin Farrell, Michelle Rodriguez and Robert Duvall — will exhibit the same kind of intensity that his work to date has.] ‘Yes. Yes, definitely,’ [she says.] ‘It really was a remarkable set to be on. For me it felt like the most kind of beautiful laboratory of making a film. Because everybody was such a different element and Steve has such a generosity, but such strength, such clarity as a director. Steve is gorgeous. He’s a beautiful, beautiful human.’
On fixing the sexism in Hollywood ‘You’ve got to go really to the grassroots,’ [she says.] ‘I was reading an article the other day. I can’t remember who wrote it, but it was basically saying, here’s a way to fix sexism in your company: just hire women. Just hire women to make, direct and produce your films. Make them about women’s stories. At the end of the day, if the people who are holding the power do not believe in women, we’re never going to be given stories where women’s voices are heard. And we’re always going to be following the male tale, for evermore. And I think we’re bored of that. It has its place, but we’re bored of it.’
On her awkward teenage years ‘I mean, why don’t you have a good time in high school?’ [she says.] ‘The age you are, you’re like this unformed ball of plasma that’s desperately sensitive and sort of absorbing multiple shocks of identity crisis. You couldn’t pay me to be 15 again. Awful. I’ve always felt like I was very odd. I definitely didn’t feel like I fitted in, in a big way.’
On dealing with next-level fame ‘I think it can happen to people to whom it doesn’t suit,’ [she says, diplomatically,] ‘and I think that there are some people who it really does suit: it feeds their art and it feeds the platform they want to work on and all that. And I think that that’s a really positive thing. For them.’ [Mainly, she says, she knows of people who] ‘are very quote/ unquote famous, but really can just walk down the street and people don’t bother them’. [The latter, she thinks, will continue to be her strategy.]
The full interview appears in this week’s issue of ES Magazine, out Thursday 8th February
Photographs taken by Charlotte Hadden
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