Australian actress Emily Browning has already had the opportunity to take on a number of challenging, provocative roles in her young career (even if some didn’t work out), from Babydoll in Sucker Punch to playing a drugged prostitute in Sleeping Beauty. I’ve always thought of her more as a Jennifer Jason Leigh type than your cookie cutter sexy ingenue, but just in case, Browning tells the Guardian in a new interview that she’s not into that anyway.
“I’m so determined not to play the hot babe that doesn’t say anything, that can’t have an opinion, but it’s so difficult to resist all of that. Hollywood movies are made for white men, and that’s something I think about and which bothers me all the time.”
At the very least, most Hollywood movies are made by white men, meaning we’re entering a difficult phase where those same white men try to decide what non-white men might want to see. There will be growing pains.
Incidentally, this interview was to promote Legend, the movie where Tom Hardy plays twin British gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray, which I will definitely be seeing this week at TIFF (just try and stop me, you bastards). Browning plays Reggie Kray’s wife, Franie, in the film. And she’s already earned at least one negative review, from the real-life Franie’s niece, Frances.
“I could feel my daughter sitting next to me throughout that film and I could feel her sobs. [Franie] provided the narration throughout the film sounding common as muck and looking like a little two-bit trollope. [TheIndependent]
Oh well, everyone’s a critic.
I’m not sure what’s most charmingly British about this, the fact that a newspaper went to the dead woman’s niece for comment, the fact that they’re both named “Frances,” or that her scathing critique included the phrases “two-bit trollope” and “common as muck.”
The woman says she’s quit her job from the anxiety and stress of the film, so try not to think about that while you’re watching Tom Hardy play his own twin.
Oh man, I can’t wait. As a white male, Tom Hardy playing his own psychotic twin is exactly what I want to watch.