Laura Dern Quotes

Women's roles in the movies remain, for the most part, girlfriends, mothers, wives.

I think, so often, women play supporting roles or girlfriends or wives - they're there to support a man's journey.

As women, we tend to take the easy way out in showbiz. I have done movies where all I did was look pretty in every frame.

There is this idea that you have to play heroines or women who succeed.

There aren't good roles for women: the female parts aren't developed: the women are serving the men.

There have been a few times when I've read a script and it's really cool but the girl character's just kind of pathetic. It's not going to do me any favours just being 'the girl' in a cool movie.

I seem to be getting a lot of things pushed my way that are strong women. It's like people see Hackers and they send me offers to play tough women with guns, the kind who wear no bra and a little tank top. I'd like to play strong women who are also very feminine.

I'm so bored of reading scripts with these wonderfully complex male roles, yet the woman character just sits on the bed waiting for him to come home.

A lot of animated movies in the past have sort of relied on these archaic tropes on what the female characters in those movies can be and who they are.

There are so many male antiheroes but not nearly as many female antiheroes.There's a lot of pressure on female characters to be likable. That puts a lot of pressure on women to be likable.

I was a fan of the idea of Red Sonja, but the gender politics of the character made her hard to read, for me, at times.

When we create female characters, I think often there is a tendency to kind of make female characters emotionally bulletproof.

In Hollywood, only a female who's massively damaged is interesting.

Women do feel like they're in a box. Society, Hollywood, some men-they want to wrap women up in a neat little package.

We don't have enough young, female antiheroes. We don't accept women as antiheroes the way we do the men.

I think that Hollywood misconstrues actresses saying, 'Oh I wanna play a strong female character,' like we all want to play, like, superheroes or something.

There are some strong female performers out there. But the industry's pre-occupation with the packaging of how a woman looks has gone completely the other way, back to almost the 60s, early 70s.

I'd just like to see a role for women where someone who isn't traditionally attractive is not portraying the best friend. You know, the character that only speaks in questions. 'Gee, are you gonna go out with him? Do you think I look fat?'

I think there are a lot of rules for women. We have a lot of expectations and a lot of rules for women. So we're expected to march in a straight line, and when we don't, all hell breaks loose.

I have four daughters. A lot of the time, I don't allow myself to be in projects that objectify women.

There's no need for a female character that does things like a male character; that's not what makes interesting female characters in my view.

Most historians and other writers of what we now consider 'primary sources' simply didn't think about women and their contribution to society. They took it for granted, except when that contribution or its lack directly affected men.

I started to think of Grace of Monaco as a metaphor for women in general.

We as women have a voice and we are decision makers in what film to see. We always support our boyfriends and husbands by going to see the male dominated films, but we don't compel them to see films with female casts.

Growing up in Texas, you were either pretty or smart. Smart didn't get you very far, because there weren't too many job opportunities for women. I wondered why you couldn't be both.