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Making movies in the middle of a pandemic is not for the faint of heart. And neither is fighting for progress in Hollywood.
On Saturday, awards-season contenders gathered virtually for a Sundance Film Festival panel thrown by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association called “Women Breaking Barriers: An Industry Shift.”
The HFPA conversation focused on female voices with a panel comprised of Halle Berry (“Bruised”), Zendaya (“Malcolm & Marie”), Andra Day (“The United States vs. Billie Holiday”), Sia (“Music”) and Robin Wright (“Land”).
Zendaya, who video-called in from her trailer on set of the next “Spider-Man” film, opened up about what drove her to produce for the first time on “Malcom & Marie,” which shot last summer during the pandemic.
While she yearned to be creative during the lockdown, Zendaya said she also wanted to help get part of her “Euphoria” crew back to work, asking “Euphoria” creator Sam Levinson if he could pen a script for her.
She and Levinson are “very close,” she said. “He would call me every day that he would write pages and we’d talk about it for hours.”
Once they were on the set of “Malcom & Marie,” “it was such a close-knit, familial thing because these are my crew members from ‘Euphoria,’ “ said Zendaya, who was joined by co-star John David Washington and Levinson, who directed.
“It was my first time putting my own money into something, I’m doing my own hair and makeup, everybody’s doing five different jobs because it was a skeleton crew. I was bringing my own clothes and using them as set dressing.”
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The crew also made money when “Malcom & Marie” sold to Netflix, she added. “I think it’s important we take care of our people.”
Berry cheered the younger actress’ initiative. “At 24 that she can have an idea and go get it done and get enough support behind her to get that done… I think that says so much for where we’ve gotten – and that’s what makes me want to keep fighting, because of Zendaya at 24, a Black woman can do that. She is proof positive that things are changing.”
For Berry, getting “Bruised” made, in which she plays a MMA fighter, was itself a bruising process. “It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done,” said the star, who described the uphill battle she experienced preparing to direct for the first time.Â
Still, “as a Black woman, I’ve never felt more empowered the last two or three years,” she said. Berry’s current focus is to tell stories through a female perspective, even if it makes her peers uncomfortable.
“We have a different take on the world and it’s time that we’re allowed to have that lens. And I’ll tell you when I was making my movie, some of the people that I worked with who were around me kept trying to force me to tell the movie through their lens, that male lens that they understood. And I would have to fight and say, ‘No – this feels foreign to you because guess what? It is. You’re a man, I’m a woman! My reality of being a woman is different than you think it is!’ “
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“The same story told through a woman’s lens is an entirely different narrative,” agreed Day, who makes her acting debut playing Billie Holiday in the upcoming Hulu biopic, which is directed by Lee Daniels.
The “Rise Up” singer said she didn’t intend to lead a film for her first role. “I didn’t anticipate I would go into acting this soon or start with a role like this. I didn’t want to do this when it was first brought to my attention – because I love Billie Holiday … I was nervous, I was terrified. I said ‘no’ multiple times,” said Day, adding that she was ultimately convinced to do it to shed light on how Holiday’s activist song “Strange Fruit” made her a target of the FBI.
The female filmmakers shed light on other struggles they experienced making their movies.Â
After Sia cast Leslie Odom Jr, in her upcoming film “Music,” “I got told I couldn’t cast a Black woman and a Black man because ‘then it would be a Black movie…and it won’t be commercial,’ ” said Sia. “I was like, gross, dudes.” (The role ultimately went to Kate Hudson.)
“I’ve heard that my whole life,” replied Berry.
After Robin Wright spoke about how producers convinced her to star in “Land” to avoid scheduling conflicts with other possible actors, Sia also revealed why she appears in her film, although she didn’t intend to. “
“The same thing happened to me,” said Sia. “I cast Katy Perry in just a little role. And she pulled out the week before. And then we sent it to Beyonce’s people. I don’t even know if they got it, but we were like, fingers crossed. And then it was the day before the shoot, I was like, (expletive) I need a pop star. Oh, I’m a (expletive) pop star! I can do this!”
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