Actress Cate Blanchett revealed that she and her producing partner, Coco Francini, have set a rule for hiring crew after realizing that there were 62 men and she was the only woman on set. “You must interview a woman” and a “person of color” she said.
“We made a rule, basically, for every single member of the crew that for every position you must interview a woman, and you must interview a person of color,” Francini said while sitting next to Blanchett during an interview with her Kering Women in Motion talk at Cannes.
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“I look forward to the day when we don’t even need to have interviews about women in cinema — where it’s a non-issue,” Blanchett said.
The Blue Jasmine star went on to say that she and Francini have “both had experiences where we walked on set and done the headcount, and you wonder why you sort of slightly feel alienated and annoyed,”
“It’s because you realize — not only am I their only woman in the cast, there are 62 men, and yep, I’m the only woman,” Blanchett said. “This ratio is bad — it’s really disproportionate.”
“And it means you’re always laughing at the same jokes. I do have a really good sense of humor, but it’s like, let’s change it up,” the actress added.
Francini said that even though women have made progress in the entertainment business, it’s still “undoubtedly” harder for a woman to get a film financed.
“We’re not there yet,” she said. “We make films for an audience. We’d love for our industry to look like our audience, and we’re not there yet, but I think we are making progress.”
Blanchett, who has an estimated net worth of $95 million, chimed in, saying, “It’s hard to get paid as an actress.”
“I think transparency is really important. We always talk about money like we shouldn’t be talking about money. But why don’t we talk about money? We’re open about all the other aspects of the process,” Blanchett added.
“I think the more transparent all that stuff is, the more you can work out how the money is flowing and where it needs to flow, and where it’s not flowing yet,” the actress said.
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