For years, it's driven me crazy that women don't have better roles, especially in comedies. I know so many funny women but I always felt... misogynist streak is too strong a term - but a dismissiveness.
Before 'Sunny' came along, I would audition and do chemistry reads with very funny actors. And then they would cast someone who was beautiful and benign. I don't think that very funny men wanted to headline with very funny women. They wanted to be the funny ones, and they wanted the wife to be the wife. That was very frustrating.
I remember watching Gilda Radner when I was a kid and everyone thought she was so funny and no one ever said that she was a funny woman, she was just funny.
As a female comic, if you talk about sex in any capacity, you will be branded a 'sex comic,' so I might as well go full force on it.
I understand why so many female comics quit or change their path, because it is hard. It's hard to be a comedian, and people have so much aggression towards women. I don't really know where that comes from, but I feel a total responsibility, and I'm gonna do my part, to continue on the path that I'm on.
I think the whole concept that women aren't funny is dead. It's over; it's done.
As a woman, it seems you can't just be a comedian; you're always classed as something else, too, whether that's 'beautiful,' 'pint-sized,' 'larger-than-life' or in my case, 'Hattie Jacques-esque,' 'the giraffe,' 'big.'
I think there's a lack of quality roles for women in comedies. Most actresses get cast as the "eye-roller" or "the serious one," while men in comedies get to do all the fun, silly stuff and muck around. Sometimes you just have to search hard for a role or create one for yourself.
