Hollywood: a man’s world? Not if actress ELIZABETH BANKS has anything to do with it. Ahead of her directorial debut, she tells MICKEY RAPKIN about readdressing the power balance.
On a sunny spring morning, Elizabeth Banks sits at a quiet farm-to-table coffee shop in Los Angeles. Clad in black denim, tortoiseshell frames resting on the table, she looks every bit a woman who means business, before she bursts into laughter. She is talking about her cameo role in this summer’s Magic Mike XXL, the hotly anticipated sequel to the 2012 comedy drama about male strippers. Banks can barely get the words out as she produces her phone to show off a photo. It’s of herself, on set: overly tanned and absurdly toned, sporting a gold mini-dress and perilous heels. “I play an ex-stripper,” she says. “She’s a hot mess, she's completely not me, which is great!”
Banks, 41, has earned the right to send herself up. As ambitious as she is beautiful, she has seized control of her career at a time when many of her peers struggle to stay relevant. After starring in and producing 2012’s surprise hit comedy Pitch Perfect, about the bizarre world of collegiate a cappella singers, Banks has made her directorial debut with the follow-up, Pitch Perfect 2. The importance of this cannot be overstated: in 2013, the major Hollywood studios released exactly three films with female directors; in 2014, that number rose to five.
But Banks relishes a challenge. Earlier last year, she flew directly from the Atlanta, Georgia set of the final The Hunger Games film, Mockingjay, Part 2 – in which she plays fan favorite Effie Trinket – to Magic Mike XXL’s Baton Rouge, Louisiana set. “I was deep in post-production on Pitch Perfect 2,” says Banks, “and I needed a break. It was a jolt of energy.”
It takes a certain kind of woman to describe a pressurized job in a major film franchise as a vacation. But Banks isn’t a workaholic, so much as someone with a firm grasp of what she wants.
I know this from experience. I first met the actress in 2006; I was writing a non-fiction book about a female a cappella group struggling in a man’s world. Banks and her husband, producer and author Max Handelman, caught wind of the project and wanted to discuss the film rights. Over lunch in New York, we bonded over the hilarity of teenage girls singing Justin Timberlake songs without instruments. When we finished our salads, Banks pulled me in close with the words, “I’m a hugger!” She vowed to keep in touch. But this was a Hollywood actress: I was sure I’d never see that hugger again.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. When the book was published in 2008, Banks and Handelman sold the project to Universal Studios and brought in a screenwriter. When I arrived on set, Banks was sitting in the stifling Louisiana heat with her son Felix in one arm and a laptop in the other. “Both Max and I have had to fight misconceptions,” Banks says today. “‘She’s just a blond actress who works with her husband.’ ‘Who are they?’ ‘She’s not even that successful of an actress!’ But none of this is a vanity project. I want to tell stories and have more control over my life.”
Pitch Perfect went on to make nearly $115million at the box office and the sequel – which reunites Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson and Banks on-screen – is expected to dwarf those earnings. The rarity of this isn’t lost on Banks, who knows she is carrying a banner for all would-be female directors. “I don’t want to pretend it’s not what it is. You can’t not take up the cause the minute you accept the job,” she says. “I made a funny movie – about girls – and it’s going to make money? It just doesn’t happen.”
I make a joke, asking if she, Lena Dunham and Angelina Jolie host secret meetings for strong industry women. “There’s no meeting,” Banks replies, dryly, “because we’re all ****ing busy.” Don’t get her started on the pay disparity in Hollywood, she says, shaking her head; the situation is so infuriating she won’t dignify it with a response. This is vintage Banks – practical, blunt, a girl’s girl. When the massive breakfast burrito she ordered arrives at our table, she takes one look and says, “I’d eat all of this but I have to go put on dresses [for The EDIT’s shoot]. I’ll eat, like, four bites.”
It has been ever thus. Banks (born Elizabeth Mitchell) grew up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, a blue-collar town where money was tight. The oldest of four, she got her first job aged 12, working at a youth center, serving coffee on Saturdays. “I was very independent from a young age,” she says.
She met her husband on her first day at the University of Pennsylvania. “When I met Max,” she says, with a laugh, “I was not like, ‘I just met my husband!’ I was 18; it was lust. He looked like Jason Priestley from Beverly Hills, 90210. I was like, ‘Oh, that’s a college boy. That’s what I’m interested in.’”
That determination has served Banks well, particularly in her career. After reading the first book in The Hunger Games series, she emailed the film’s director, Gary Ross, to lobby for the role of Effie. She shot her last scene for Mockingjay, Part 2 alone against a green screen so she could fly out to Baton Rouge to scout locations for Pitch Perfect 2. “Jennifer [Lawrence] didn’t realize I was leaving,” Banks recalls. “Everyone had to get in the trucks and drive somewhere else, so I went back to take off my Effie makeup alone in the rain. Then I got a text from Jennifer saying, ‘Oh God, I just realized. I’m so sorry!’ Which is totally her, so great.”
This is Banks’ life now – maximizing every minute, for herself, for her husband, and their sons, Felix, four, and Magnus, two. “Motherhood changed me in positive ways,” she says. “It made me more ambitious for my kids. I do everything for them now, because I want this “Motherhood changed me in positive ways. I do everything for my KIDS; I want this SUCCESS for my life with them” success for my life with them.” She is rumored to play tennis champion Billie Jean King in a film for HBO, which she’ll also produce. And there is talk of Pitch Perfect 3, though whether Banks would direct again is unclear. “Directing is a big decision,” she says. “It’s a year and a half of my life and it’s taking my kids out of their daily routine.”
It’s enough to make you wonder if she ever gets whiplash, going from hands-on mom to the beauty we see on the red carpet. But one thing is for sure: Elizabeth Banks, poster girl for the modern woman, will continue to do things perfectly – and on her terms.
Pitch Perfect 2 is out now; Magic Mike XXL is out July 1.
