Heather Graham says attitudes towards women in Hollywood have greatly changed in recent years, but feels there’s still room for improvement.
The 55-year-old actress, whose various movie credits include Boogie Nights, The Hangover, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and Bowfinger, was just a teenager when she first started out in the business in the 1980s.
She has expanded into writing and directing in recent years, but says previously it wasn’t really seen as “cool” or the done thing as a female.
Speaking to The Standard, she said: “When I first started out there were very few female directors. It wasn’t really seen as cool.
“I think the narrative has changed into Greta Gerwig is cool and she made Barbie and it made a lot of money. No-one was making a feminist movie that made a billion dollars when I started in the business and I don’t think I even thought about directing as an option.
“It didn’t seem like there were a lot of role models. I mean, there was Penny Marshall, they were just really rare cool people the women that were directors but it definitely wasn’t something that was encouraged and even in a lot of the other crew positions like female cinematographers and things like that. That’s just a newer thing where women feel empowered to choose that as their job.”
Graham made her directorial debut with Half Magic in 2018, a comedy she also wrote and starred in. She followed it up last year with romantic dramedy Chosen Family, which also featured actress Julia Stiles, who has since stepped behind the camera herself.
“I really love her, she’s such an intelligent person,” Graham enthused. “It has been great to watch her journey and cheer her on as she starts directing films.”
Chosen Family was a deeply personal project for the Wisconsin-born star, which she says is “loosely based” on her own life.
The message of it is about recognising the people who hold you up in life while setting boundaries with those who don't.
This is a lesson that Graham - who last year revealed she has been estranged from her own family for 30 years - says she wishes she had learned a long time ago.
She explained: “I wanted to make a movie that was sort of about me learning to set boundaries and I wish I could have shared that knowledge when I was younger, but when I was younger I really just had to stop talking to them because I didn’t know how to set boundaries.”
“I wanted to write something that I would want to watch and to kind of show an aspect of my journey that was painful for me but to tell the story with humour because tragedy plus time equals comedy. I wanted to find comedy in some of the lessons and things I have struggled with in my life.”
Up next, Graham will star alongside Nicolas Cage and Stephen Dorff in Western The Gunslingers. She has also joined Zazie Beetz, Patricia Arquette, and Tom Felton in thriller They Will Kill You, and already started on her next script.
“I’m writing a new script that’s called Triggered and it’s a mixture of more serious but with still some humour and then I kind of want to write a revenge story because I do like a good revenge story, especially with a female protagonist getting her revenge on evil men.
“I do feel like women’s voices and women’s stories there is a huge market for that and that they haven’t been told to the extent that they could be told so I do feel really passionate about being able to choose stories that I care about, to write, to produce and to direct them. I would love to do more of that.”
Graham also wouldn’t rule out taking it one step further and starting her own production company.
“I’d love to actually start my own production company, something like Reese Witherspoon or Margot Robbie where they’re like change the storytellers. You know, if you want to change the culture, change the stories we tell young people, change the stories we tell people of every age of like what women are, what we can be.
“I feel like if the woman is the protagonist then it’s just a way of caring about our stories. If the man is always the protagonist I feel like I grew up to think ‘oh, I’m a supporting player in a man’s story’ as opposed to thinking no, my story matters, how I feel matters, it’s not just about me supporting the male star.”
Chosen Family is available on digital download now.
