How Elizabeth Banks used ‘Charlie’s Angels’ as an empowerment platform for women

For Elizabeth Banks, remaking “Charlie’s Angels” was about putting smart, career-minded women onscreen, something she doesn’t see enough. “I told the studio and my collaborators: ‘I want to make a movie about women working, and I do not want to tell a story about the boyfriend they don’t see enough, or the mother they don’t call enough, or the cat they don’t feed.’ Those are ridiculous tropes in women’s movies, and you do not see James Bond worrying about calling his f—ing mother,” she says in Porter magazine’s new cover story. The producer and director also notes that her goals in 2019 aren’t the same goals someone in her position might have had a couple of decades ago. “I’m not here to re-teach feminism to young women. I am here to empower them and to have them see themselves in a movie, which happens far too infrequently, especially in the action genre,” Elizabeth explains. In recent years, she’s focused more on producing than acting; her next directorial role is slated to be on the upcoming TV movie, “The Greater Good.”