Blake Lively has no illusions about what it means to be a woman in Hollywood—right down to the types of roles she can play.
In a recent interview for Vanity Fair’s podcast, “The Limelight,” the All I See Is You star got candid about the inherent sexism in the film industry. Specifically, the 30-year-old pointed out how a widespread “double standard” limits her and other female actors to “likable” roles, while male actors, like her husband, Ryan Reynolds, can play the part of jerks and still be considered charming.
“I mean, my husband plays a**holes [but], you go, ‘He’s so charming.’ Because he is likable… or you look at Harrison Ford as Han Solo and he’s like, ‘Get over here, sweetheart,’ and you just sort of [think], ‘Whoo, it’s so exciting and romantic and titillating.’ It’s because he’s charming and he’s loving and he’s not some sexist a**hole,” Lively noted. “But, you don’t see that and think, ‘Oh, that guy’s not likable.'”
The mother of two continued: “But you would read on a page and you just know, ‘Oh, it’s a man, he’ll be charming. But if you read that on a page as a woman, they would never let you say that line because the note would always be, ‘Oh, you just have to make sure she’s likable.'”
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Lively pointed to her most recent film, The Rhythm Section, as proof. “I play a heroin-addicted prostitute. Going back to the likable thing… you always see that thing in movies where if a woman is a prostitute or a sex worker, you always think, ‘I don’t want the guys to be grossed out by her,'” she said. “We have to still make her kind of sexy… tragically sexy, but you know, music video.”
“If you drive down skid row that’s not what you see. That’s not the truth,” she continued. “So it’s really important to us to show a woman who society has written off, and society has forgotten about.”
We feel ya, girl!