Hollywood needs to hire more minorities to write movies — Pedro Almodovar
PEDRO Almodovar believes Hollywood bosses need to hire more “minorities” to write movies.
The Spanish filmmaker doesn’t agree that only gay or Jewish actors should play gay or Jewish characters and thinks the best way to promote true diversity in the film industry is by having authentic voices bring their experiences to the story.
He told The Hollywood Reporter magazine: “The essence of acting is, in fact, to pretend, to be someone other than who you are, even in your own essence. That is at the core of acting.
“So, for example, absolutely a heterosexual actor can play a homosexual character and vice versa.
“If Hollywood is so obsessed, as it is right now, with representing minorities, be they Latinos, Asians or people with disabilities, they should actually hire them to do the writing.
“Just so I’m not misunderstood, I want to make sure that it is clear that I’m very much in favour of minorities of all types to be considered for casting in films and also to be hired behind the camera and that they be able to tell their own stories.
“I mean, even when you talk about the Western, we don’t have many Westerns told from the point of view of Native Americans, even though this is a genre that speaks of them, o en in very unkind and unfair ways.”
Since releasing ‘Pain and Glory’ in 2019, Pedro has gone on to work on two short films, ‘The Human Voice’ and ‘Strange Way of Life’ and the 73-year-old filmmaker admi ed they have given his career new excitement, as well as helping improve how he works in English.
He said: “I wrote those two stories, and the right format for them was the short. I didn’t want to artificially lengthen them because that was the right length.”