This year’s Actress Roundtable with The Hollywood Reporter featured seven A-list actresses including Emma Stone, Natalie Portman, Taraji P. Henson and Amy Adams. The leading ladies of Hollywood talked about their favorite acting performances, their feelings about theater and stage fright, and, of course, equal pay and representation.
On the latter, Amy Adams had very strong opinions: “Who you should be asking is the Producer Roundtable: ‘Do you think minorities are underrepresented? Do you think women are underpaid?’” Henson was quick to share her agreement saying that interviewers have come to expect the same kinds of answers from women and minorities in the business, suggesting that it’s become a stereotype in itself.
What’s more important, Adams adds, is directing those questions to the people who make discriminatory casting decisions. “Why don’t you ask them and then have their statements be the headlines in the press?” she suggests.
All seven women agree that they’ve encountered challenges specific to gender, age and race at one time or another, but that hasn’t stopped them from pursuing their dreams.
The roundtable discussion is an honest and liberating one that gets real about issues women face, even in an industry as glamorous as Hollywood. It’s a reminder of just how far we’ve come and how far we have left to go.