IT’S SMOOTH SAILING
Veteran television star Sarah Paulson is part of Ocean’s 8 all-star female cast
Wouldn’t it be great if we never had to read another story about #Metoo again? If “time’s up” was just something you said during a spirited game of charades? If, instead of calling out men who’ve abused their power, hashtags were reserved for important things, like #Dogbands?
But no. Rather than giggling over tweets like “The Beagles” and “Howl and Oates,” there are issues like gender discrimination to contemplate. Equal rights and legal recourse to ponder, along with a little movie about eight women who steal a lot of jewelry.
Ocean’s 8 is the newest instalment of the Ocean’s franchise, and the first all-female version of the films. Whereas the 1960 instalment starred Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack, and the 2000s trilogy boasted George Clooney and his man pals, here we have Sandra Bullock as the criminal mastermind.
Her cohorts are a who’s who of lady talent: Cate Blanchett, Helena Bonham Carter, Mindy Kaling and Rihanna among them. Coming as it does after the all-female 2016 Ghostbusters reboot, and the subsequent social-media trolling from mean-spirited fans of the original, the film knows it’s taking a risk.
And frankly, my dear, it doesn’t give a damn.
“We filmed before the whole #Timesup and #Metoo movements had reached their peak,” says Sarah Paulson, who plays suburban mom and ex-criminal Tammy, who’s pulled back into the heisting business to steal an obscene amount of jewelry at the Met gala in New York City.
“It’s not reinventing the franchise. I think of it as looking at it from the perspective of ‘What women would bring to the story? What would change? Would anything change? And how would the dynamic be different?’”
Set against the real-life wave of female empowerment, you could read the film as a group of diverse women shamelessly taking someone else’s money — and the power it brings — to gain personal freedom. Bullock’s character Debbie Ocean actually says at one point that they’re stealing the jewelry for the eight-year-old girl out there who wants to be a criminal. After all, everyone knows diamonds are a girl’s best friend, right?
At another point, she says she doesn’t want any men on the job because this is one situation in which women’s invisibility is an advantage.
Add in a soundtrack that includes Nancy Sinatra’s These Boots Are Made for Walkin’, and you almost need a squeegee to clear the screen of its estrogen. “There are all these women working together, trying to pull off a heist and the focus isn’t on men,” says Paulson. “It is exciting to look at the poster and see all these women and no men. But let me be clear — I don’t want to banish men from all filmdom. I just want women to have a seat at the table.”
Paulson herself not only has a seat at the table, she’s feasting on filet mignon. Next year, she’s starring with Nicole Kidman in the film The Goldfinch, after half a decade collecting accolades for her work in FX’S American Horror Story and The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story. (The latter saw her embody Marcia Clark and won her an Emmy, a SAG Award and a Critics’ Choice Award.)
“For me, I had done a lot of television work, but not a lot in film. I was the last person hired, so I was fully aware of the calibre of the cast,” she says. “I’d always been a fan of Sandra Bullock, who’s been celebrated for her comedic work, but I also happen to think she’s a great dramatic actress. Her work in Gravity was amazing.”
Conversely, Paulson — who’s resume is packed with dramatic roles including a sociopath, a drug addict and a pair of conjoined twins — enjoyed the opportunity to let loose during Ocean’s 8. Particularly, when writer-director Gary Ross gave the cast freedom to improvise. To hear the women roar, so to speak.
“I’m the type of person that when you say ‘let’s improvise a bit,’ my mind goes to a X-rated place and that’s what came out. Gary was eventually like, ‘OK Sarah, pull it back. We’re trying to make this a PG movie.”