Elizabeth Banks On Doing It All From Acting In ‘The Better Sister’ To Directing ‘Cocaine Bear’
these are great movies catch Me If You Can Stephen Spielberg’s movie with Leo yeah um put that on my vision board Pete i had that on my vision board back in the day is that right that script came around and you know at the time there just weren’t there weren’t a ton of like movies where you’re like “Oh there’s so many roles for girls in this movie.” You know all of us young 20somes i was I’m friends with so many of them ellen Pompeo and Amy Adams and Jennifer Garner and you know all of these women that got to sort of audition and be a part of that movie it was really fun it was like it was rare to have a movie that had that many sort of fun juicy little roles and that you get to play with Leo [Music] please answer the question what drew me to him i mean you’ve seen the pictures he was hot what was Adam like he was very ambitious like if he decided he wanted something it went on the to-do list you know very type A very much like my sister not like me at all he was everything that I was not he was organized disciplined he wanted me to be better and thought that I could change but I was I was just always going to be what I was and what was that a drunk a drunk i really tried um after Ethan was born for him i at first I really tried and it just got harder and it got worse the last thing any mom wants is for her kid to get taken away but then you realize they’re better off without you that was something I had to admit to myself and I knew Adam wouldn’t fail at being a a good dad you know he he cared way too much about other people thought of him would you describe his relationship with Ethan as a good one i don’t know i wasn’t there welcome to the actor’s side and I should say even more than the actor’s side because she is not just an actor she’s a writer a producer a director a game show host everything there’s nothing she doesn’t do welcome Elizabeth Banks hi my goodness that’s a very nice introduction thank you well it’s true this is uh you know I can’t keep up with all you do a multitasker it’s a and right now uh starring in the Better Sister on Amazon Prime uh video with Jessica Beal and that’s a great show so it’s a limited series starts uh May 29th then May 29th Prime Video Better Sister jessica and I play Sisters and you know it’s funny because we have been told for years that we looked alike which I took as a huge compliment she’s one of the most beautiful people on the planet and um I but I never really sort of you know it didn’t and then we got together it really was it was a great sisterhip yeah yeah you know it’s a very interesting for me to watch this because my wife and her sister it so reminds me of them the totally different you can’t imagine they came from the same family and uh it’s it’s I I’m one of four and I feel like the theme that one of the themes that the uh showrunners Olivia Milch and Regina Curado wanted to explore was this notion that when there is sort of a a distance between the sisters and and Jessica and I play maybe like four or five years apart at most right is that um you get different versions of your parents isn’t that interesting and how you know um your parents are like like they’re different people like they’re still growing and they’re going through their own stuff when you’re getting raised and you might be raised a little differently or you might perceive them a little differently and Jessica and I in the series see especially our father um from two totally different vantage points you know and it affected me one way and she sort of skated through it and also there was some protection by me for her on her behalf which goes unagnowledged so that’s a little bit of the rift between us right but I love seeing you play this kind of role thank you she’s this kind of like hot mess who’s very interesting and complicated uh character you know it’s I really recognized her i’m from a I’m from like a small town and um I’m an Irish Catholic there are a lot of drinkers in my family this character is a drinker big drinker and she also I think you know she’s smart and street smart and tell you know could have been more and that’s what I I really was attracted to the idea of somebody who watched their sister go and have everything exactly right and knowing deep down I could have had more and it’s my own fault that I don’t and I feel like when her sister says like your life sucks because of what you’ve done it’s very true but it’s also like yeah I know like I I’ve been I’ve been I’ve been dealing with this now you know and I’ve I did figure that out thanks but like my little sister who I’m estranged from um you know played by Jessica we we’re not connected on that level like she’s not telling me anything I don’t know no and that’s the big sister and me right like yeah I I got you figured out you don’t quite have me figured out that That’s it and of course it’s very complex and complicated it’s you’re brought together by the murder of her husband who you had my ex-husband yes and the son you know who basically is brought up by them but you’ve got the maternal instincts cuz it’s your son yeah it it gets complicated it’s very comp it’s a complicated family dynamic for sure yeah um Al Farah Burke who wrote the book that it’s based on she was a prosecutor for years um she’s a lawyer yeah and she would come across these like crazy family cases right and you know you write these things and it all feels stranger than fiction even though we all realize now like the world is complex god knows what’s going on but this is dragged right out of like Jerry Springer do you know what I mean like completely who are these people where like two sisters marry the same guy like what you know what I mean and it’s like it happens like Alfair had seen that a similar dynamic in um cases and so she pulled directly from her own experience when she was sort of coming up with like what were the notions that could be explored yeah it is so interesting to see the two of you play opposite each other and the director at least for a couple of them was Craig Gillespie and I’m thinking about Craig Gillespie watching this too because he did it he did and there’s a bit of Itana in this you know he was the one who called and said “I want to see you messy with like ripped up nails and ratty hair.” And he’s like “I want to mess you up.” And I you know and and and he re and he wanted more humor right he wanted somebody who he could trust to sort of be wild but intelligent right you know like there’s a wildness to her um but there’s a deep intelligence to her as well and like some emotional intelligence cuz she’s been through some oh god okay i’m sorry I’m saying the sword oh that’s okay you can say anything here oh wow well now we’ll see where it goes you’re good yeah no that that’s good um had you read the book before you got involved in this i did not read it until the offer came across the desk and I thought well I better read this book and see what this is all about i to be honest because I had an outline and I had the first episode Uhhuh i didn’t know where it all went and I actually once I read the book I did know where it all went and I mean I of course I needed that information but it is it sort of was a bummer to not like sometimes you get scripts and you’re like oh my god this is this was happening you know I’m I’m working on something right now where we just got like the final script and it’s like oh we’re doing that at the end you know what I mean I didn’t know yeah it’s going to go I mean I sort of had an idea of where it was headed but the way it allow came together um was surprising as an actor and it’s kind it’s just a little fun you know I always wonder that about that because there are certain directors Woody Allen was famous for that just handing you your pages and things like that Richard Brooks the great Richard Brooks always did that with his actors and things and I wonder if that’s a hindrance because you want that backstory you want to know I want to know everything in the past but do I need to know what’s coming in the future I think that’s the question right it’s like I feel like I do want to know I want the backstory i want to know where this all came from who this person is but then at the end of the day we have to just play the imaginary circumstances right in front of our face we have to live in the moment and I do think there are some strategies to do that and sometimes one of them is like not really knowing what’s coming around the corner that being said you should know your lines and like prepare you know what I mean i want you know as an actor I like to prepare i really just meant I knew long before we started shooting where it was all going right because you don’t you you get this you get involved and then it doesn’t shoot for months and months later so right now I’m working on something i’m still a few months out from shooting that final Oh episode and now I just found out what happens is it another limited series or It’s a series for Peacock called The Miniature Wife with me and Matthew McFadian oh great that’s fun do you like doing these kinds of things on the streaming services it’s a it’s kind of new for me to be honest i know um I was very I had a great film career and I was directing and I was sort of happy doing all that and then this is I really I just came across some great characters you know some like fun scenarios that I thought that will be I I can be enriched by that experience i do I do love acting i do want to do that still yeah and you’re doing a lot of it now but I mean the streamers are providing these things and I am I’m grateful for the the work especially for women my age you know it’s like once you’re not an anu in the film business it’s a little harder there’s less to do the data supports that i’m not like coming up with something the data will tell you there are fewer roles for women over 40 in film yeah um and TV’s picked up a lot of slack yeah yeah but I uh speaking of streamers Apple they made me actually go to Apple and see it on a screen so but most people saw the Beanie Bubble on television i love that movie it’s the Tai Warner it’s a also a true kind of story here but um yeah the backtory of the Beanie Babies of the Beanie Babies and the rise and the fall of the Beanie Babies oh and you were great and all of you were sarah Snook and Geraldine this one yeah yeah and uh just amazing yeah apple it’s still around you can go see it right now on Apple well that’s the thing about this you know once a Paul Schrader once told me you know I’m not going to do that because it you know two weeks and then it’s in the larter as he called it you know you got to remember that all this stuff is available constantly a lot of it is available and and also interestingly things I’ve done so long ago like you’re bringing up something that’s a couple years old you know I I go places now and like new generations are finding like for instance uh Modern Family or 30 Rock or Pitch Perfect or The Hunger Games and you’re like “Oh God.” Well yeah right like you think you kind of leave these things and you sort of go forth and now it’s like a whole new generation gets to gets to experiencing them and it’s really fun you know it’s fun to feel like wow you know they don’t all have to be like total classics those are real bangers what I just mentioned but I will say just knowing that young people get to still see us it’s really fun you don’t have to introduce young people to the Hunger Games i mean you did four of them and uh you know that was a great Effie that you played in that and you did Spider-Man you did like I did three Spider-Mans my first You don’t have to Spider-Man yeah I know the Tobeby Maguire Spider-Mans yeah yeah no you you’ve done a lot of these kind of iconic big blockbuster kind of things but then now that you’re mentioning all all these movies I think they live on love and Mercy I absolutely loved and that’s a the Brian Wilson yeah the story of Brian Wilson the Beach Boys um it’s it’s an iconic movie and I loved how the story was told with the past and the and the future brian’s sort of meeting um my character Melinda Led Better she was Brian’s sort of savior and wife forever the only you know his the woman who really saved him and uh she passed recently and I just I I really loved her as a human being yeah god no i love that movie um Bill Pul incredible filmmaker yeah i wish she would do more do more Bill i hope so yeah and you played Laura Bush and W i did that was fun that was for Oliver Stone who I really loved working with just an iconic filmmaker a a patriot you I don’t He gets I I He loves America he loves his country he makes things that I think really challenge notions of America from a place of deep love for country i don’t think he gets enough credit for that no question uh you’ve worked with I love 40-year-old Virgin oh my god these are great movies catch Me If You Can Steven Spielberg’s movie with Leo yeah um put that on my vision board Pete i had that on my vision board back in the day is that right that script came around and you know at the time there just weren’t there weren’t a ton of like movies where you’re like oh there’s so many roles for girls in this movie you know all of us young 20somes I was I’m friends with so many of them Ellen Pompeo and Amy Adams and Jennifer Garner and you know all of these women that got to sort of audition and be a part of that movie it was really fun it was like it was rare to have a movie that had that many sort of fun juicy little roles and that you get to play with Leo it’s like Yeah i mean you know these these all these live on you know Invincible um you actually won the Best Kiss MTV award with Mark Wahberg i stand by it you should go watch that kiss again it’s a great one it’s a really good one is that uh Yeah okay and oh my god you mentioned so many of them the Lego Movie Wildstyle we know you Yes I voice Wild Style lego Movie and actually I get most recognized for my voice so if I’m walking around you know I don’t usually get recognized just like myself but if I talk if so people hear me they know it’s me and a lot of that’s from Wild Style i knew that immediately when I saw Migration not knowing anything about migration i I’m in this secret fight club of critics where they just want opinions but they they don’t tell you what you’re seeing you sign it i actually saw that in that and um uh and I listened to it and I said I immediately knew that’s Elizabeth i love that movie too the family abduct sweet movie i know we worked on it for so long for so hard cuz we had the we had the pandemic and then we had the strike and so like and we were making it that whole time yeah wow yeah i hope they do another one i know well Illumination makes beautiful movie chris Malandry he knows what he’s doing yeah yeah he told me at a cinema con before that came out before I had heard of it he said where they they previewed it at Cineacon and he said “I’ve got to keep making movies like this i can’t just keep doing you know Yeah the same thing.” Yeah they really I think they get they bring a lot of like pride when you can sort of be sweet like that and a family movie and a movie that people just laugh relate like they’re so effervescent yeah and you’re finding a lot of work in indie movies lately because I’ve seen them all skincare I have i think I’ve reviewed them all but Skinare a mistake uh Skincare was not a mistake that the other movies thank you for clarifying yes she made a movie called A Mistake um and Call Jane which was terrific yeah Call Jane is how precient i mean it really was about this moment in time that movie called Jane is is um you know it’s about uh a woman whose life is in danger if she doesn’t have an abortion before abortion is legal in America right and she goes to this underground organization that call themselves Jane uh to that in the film is run by Sigourney Weaver and to get this abortion that saves her life and at the time that we made the movie we of course were all concerned with the direction the country was heading on Roie Wade but we did not you know we were hopeful and we thought well this movie will really speak to people about this issue and I hear about it all the time from people that have seen it oh that know about it that talk about it that show it to their church groups which I recommend um that show it to other you know because there are women really who need abortion as healthcare that saves their lives and they cannot get it under these bans it is a total lie if they tell you otherwise um these bans mean that these women are near death and losing their wanted babies it’s horrifying when I saw that you know and it’s just getting worse it’s not getting better no it’s not it’s not and it’s um it’s shocking because people ask me like how I could do something that’s quote controversial and I’m I always remind people that abortion rights in America is not controversial the majority of Americans want abortion as accessible healthcare and um there were all Roie Wade always outlined limits on abortion and people were very happy with those limits and it was being chipped away at and chipped away at and chipped away at and it was um you know restored time and time again until the Supreme Court changed and it is really interesting a very small majority uh of Supreme Court justices basically allowed for this to happen to women in America and it’s it’s no good we see this in different decades and things you were also in the in Mrs america i was with Kate Blanchett and all those great women yes um played Jill Ruckle’s house and things and that was you know against the voice of this one woman who was trying to set us back 50 years that’s right and so that put that warning out there too that you know it did I mean she was you know it’s the rise of the Christian right and which is a political tool I think people love to think of it as some moral standard yeah and as a reminder the Christian right is a political tool it’s a tool of oppression it’s a tool of control it’s not anytime you are forcing faith it’s never about the face faith it’s about the control right and um yeah Phyllis Sha Shaffley was the name Shaffley yeah the woman who thought that she was making a deal with uh the Reagan administration um to sort of you know promote herself and promote her own power and she ended up taking taking down the women’s rights movement to be honest totally yeah i mean it was it’s like unbelievable in addition to all of your acting which is really goes on you’ve got quite the resume you are a director of blockbuster kinds of movies i do tend to make studio fair you do i I find that interesting cocaine cocaine bear bear which we’re waiting for the sequel there it can be it can be cocaine cocker spaniel i don’t care you think anything i don’t know if we can beat the bear to be honest it really was a complete thought you know um and and also ripped from the headlines true story and there are of course other true stories of animals ingesting cocaine it is happening in nature because you know and it is I I’ve always thought is a great parable for humanity sort of poisoning nature right and nature will turn on us eventually so there always was sort of that like deeper message in the movie it definitely it’s a very entertaining movie too i had a really good time with that good and you you did obviously Pitch Perfect and and you directed the second one i did produced all three of them and that was a very successful franchise of course Charlie Angels yeah you know I like to say I I tend to make the same movie every time i love to make a comedy with multiple points of view and a lot of women with agency and I just I stuck that in a musical and then I stuck it in an action movie and then I stuck it in a horror movie oh my god but really that’s what I’m sort of I actually might only be a onetrick pony no no but I have to say I looked funny and fun i looked up your awards and you had won the 2013 Rzzy for Worst Director for Movie 43 which I haven’t seen oh movie 43 that’s uh I don’t know why I would win that yeah I don’t know why but then they gave you the Rzzy Redeemer for the most improved they actually undid that and gave you the Redeemer award let me tell you um all all uh press is good press okay I’ll take it the Razies want to want to mention me hey Sandra Bulock showed up to accept it i know i love that the same year she got an Oscar so they can’t all be winners guys they can’t all be winners but Movie 43 was really that was multiple directors it was the movie that the Fairly Brothers put together they’re being very unfair and it was and actually my segment of that movie um which is called middle school date stars Khloe Morettes uh was the highest uh rated section of that movie just say so the movie overall does not quite work but my section of the movie I very proud of Pete Ferrelly went on to win Oscars for he did as well so you know so screw the rassis um we got to keep it interesting got keep people on their toes you keep it interesting because I genuinely Every time I’ve seen you I say “Pressure Luck.” I love Pressure Luck i’m addicted to Pressure Luck in fact I’m so addicted it’s on Hulu but they’ve only got the first three seasons i know i What happened they’re going to start streaming it’s because we haven’t we don’t have the full season out of this next season yet so they have not streaming it yet but it will they will have it all they will have it all oh my god it’s bu It builds a lot of audience for us the streaming of it and people love it and people uh have like favorite contestants that could come up to me oh some of them have been and you sit there the suspense level you You have no idea we are backstage and I have the ear thing and I’m going “Are they really going to spin again this is crazy.” You know like we’re freaking out we’re like “Is this good TV are they going to lose?” We I don’t want anyone to lose you know no no you’re so good at this i really don’t want anyone to lose you rev them up when they all go bankrupt with all of that and then you know you go I got build them back up you can still do it but also I do have to remind the ones the the ones that do sort of lose like they came there that day with nothing they were on TV they’re going to go home they’re going to have their all their family over for a barbecue they’re going to watch their episode they’re going to win the first half they all go home with something from the first part of the game right so everybody is a winner when they get there to the end but I really want a million dollar winner and maybe we’re going to get one this summer start July 10th is that really okay i was July 10th we’re back on the air have you seen the movie about the first uh I have not seen that movie you got to see Paul Walder Hower he’s incredible incredible actor and it’s a really incredible story yeah I’m excited to see amazing story about how he figured out the figured out the algorithm basically the early years ago yeah we we’ve done away with that now okay um the show is called The Better Sister it starts May 29th we’ve just heard Pressure Luck is coming back in July i’m so excited and you’re clearly I didn’t even get in all these projects you’ve got going but it’s a lot uh just check out IMDb uh this is Elizabeth Banks thank you for joining us on the actor side thanks [Music]
Connect with Deadline online!
https://www.facebook.com/deadline/
Tweets by DEADLINE
https://www.instagram.com/deadline/
Add A Comment