The number two movie at the box office this past weekend was Kevin Smith’s comedy Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Classically-trained actress, Elizabeth Banks, calls the role the best she’s ever played, and enthuses that director Kevin Smith “actually put a woman’s name in the title of a movie.”
Yeah, but he also put the word “porno” as the title’s direct object.
Read the LA Times interview with Banks, titled “Actress Elizabeth Banks is as versatile as they’ll let her be.”
About Banks, Smith says “She’s got that ‘guy’s girl’ thing going for her, so she can roll with dudes and be funny, but scrape that away and you realize this chick is way better than an R-rated comedy.”
I’ve heard the movie is funny and sweet, but I can’t help but to be skeptical of a celebration of this role, particularly with the bizarre and sexist statements that pop up in the very positive article.
Banks, like many actors in Hollywood, struggles with her desire to be taken seriously and do important work, but to be successful, too.
“You can go be in a female-driven indie and make two cents and maybe get an Independent Spirit Award, but then you can’t pay your car lease,” she says. “So Vince Vaughn makes movies, he needs a girl to be in it with him, it might be me.”