You’re not going to believe this, but Elizabeth Banks has never done cocaine. “I took ‘Just say no’ to heart,” Banks says over breakfast in Beverly Hills. Growing up in western Massachusetts and mo…
Elizabeth Banks“I took ‘Just say no’ to heart,” Banks says over breakfast in Beverly Hills. Growing up in western Massachusetts and moving to New York City to break into acting, the 48-year-old Banks had many opportunities to, you know, do some blow, but she claims she never took them. She says it was just too risky. “Being a goody-two-shoes played into it,” she says. “Personal safety played a big role in it. I was a cocktail waitress for years.
That kind of creative pragmatism has been a constant throughout Banks’ two decades in Hollywood. In 2008, for instance, she played Laura Bush in Oliver Stone’s political biopic “W.,” and starred opposite Seth Rogen in Kevin Smith’s profane rom-com “Zack and Miri Make a Porno.” The diametrically opposed roles signaled to the industry that she could do anything. The following year, she launched Brownstone Prods.
Warden sent the finished script to Phil Lord and Christopher Miller at their production company Lord Miller — he’d been a PA on the duo’s 2012 comedy “21 Jump Street,” and he thought it might mesh with their sensibility for zigging when the rest of the industry zags. Indeed, Banks did some particularly graphic advance research. “I don’t recommend anyone do this, but if you go down the internet hole of looking at actual animal attacks on humans, it’s fucking gnarly as shit,” she says. “I love gore. I grew up on ‘Evil Dead.’ The gore is part of the fun of the ride.”
One happy surprise after the financial failure of “Charlie’s Angels” was that Banks never went to movie jail like so many other female filmmakers with flops before her. “I wasn’t that worried about it,” she says. “I mean, I do a lot of things.” It’s not lost on Banks that she’s among the generation of actor-directors who had to fight for every opportunity in a pre-#MeToo industry. In fact, even after #MeToo, the statistics for women directors remain grim — there’s still a small list being considered to direct studio tentpoles. “Even if you’re an ambitious, talented, creative person who likes the work that they’re doing, Hollywood is not handing out paydays to women in their 40s and 50s,” she says.
When asked about the film’s envelope-pushing approach to drugs, Langley says, “You know, it’s a caper and a romp. It’s really designed to be that and nothing more. It didn’t really occur to us to politicize it at all.” At the same time, she says, the whole reason to make “Cocaine Bear” is to be so audacious that audiences can’t ignore it.
When asked about shooting Ferguson’s gruesome death — after, as revealed in the film’s first trailer, the cocaine bear chases his character up a tree — her face lights up. “It’s the greatest,” she says. “Makes me so happy.” She sighs. “I don’t get approached that much about doing anything,” she says. “But I’m open for business. That’s the thing: I’m open for business.”
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How Many Stars Are in the Milky Way?Elizabeth Howell, Ph.D., is a staff writer in the spaceflight channel since 2022. She was contributing writer for Space.com for 10 years before that, since 2012. Elizabeth's reporting includes an exclusive with Office of the Vice-President of the United States, speaking several times with the International Space Station, witnessing five human spaceflight launches on two continents, working inside a spacesuit, and participating in a simulated Mars mission. Her latest book, 'Why Am I Taller?', is co-written with astronaut Dave Williams. Elizabeth holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Space Studies from the University of North Dakota, a Bachelor of Journalism from Canada's Carleton University and (soon) a Bachelor of History from Athabasca University. Elizabeth is also a post-secondary instructor in communications and science since 2015. Elizabeth first got interested in space after watching the movie Apollo 13 in 1996, and still wants to be an astronaut someday. Mastodon: https://qoto.org/howellspace
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