I have this character in my head. She keeps appearing places: on trains, in the city, on the highway. I see her out there. She is heroic, but not like any hero we’ve ever seen.
— Debra Winger in this interview with The Guardian
I am proud of the women in the screenplay I have in development. They are as real as I can make them. They pass the Bechdel test. I love them, as I love all the characters of my fiction — and thank goodness, because I would hate to spend this much time with people I don’t like, real or not.
And they are young women. That’s what’s required for this story, and fair enough.
So here’s what I hope — that writing them well helps get the movie made, and helps me establish myself as a professional screenwriter. So that I can write the literally dozens of stories I have in my head for women in their 40’s, 50’s, 60’s… stories of adventure, bravery, sex, love, action, suspense, big feelings, small everyday moments, across the spectrum of human relationships. Not sweet old lady stories; not stories where women play someone’s mommy or grandmommy in the background. We get enough of those. The stories in my head are muscular stories of intriguing, compelling people who come in grownup female packages and do things that apparently will startle the hell out of the men who run Hollywood.
I want to do it for Debra Winger.
And Meryl Streep.
And Emma Thompson.
For every woman who has ever had to choose between playing bullshit roles or playing none at all.
For every woman over 40 who loves the movies but wonders why no one who looks like her is up on screen kicking ass and taking names, living large, being sexy, being frightened of something besides old age or loneliness, and maybe, just maybe, being the hero every once in a while.
That’s what I’m going to write. And I can’t wait.