Blake Lively recently shared her thoughts on the complexity of women and its translation onto the big screen in an interview with Glamour.
The Gossip Girl alum is set to executively produce as well as star in the CBS Films’ thriller The Husband’s Secret, which touches upon this same topic. The project focuses on women that Lively describes as both “strong and flawed.”
“We all have a lightness, and we all have a darkness, and we all have plenty of shades in between,” she told Glamour. Lively also wants her two young daughters (James, 2, and Inez, almost 1) to be able to recognize their own strength and worth.
“We’re all born feeling perfect until somebody tells us we’re not,” she said. “So there’s nothing I can teach my daughter [James]. She already has all of it. The only thing I can do is protect what she already feels.”
The Husband’s Secret is based on the Liane Moriarty novel, who also authored the hit HBO series Big Little Lies. The film is still in pre-production, but will focus on “a wife, mother, and chronic perfectionist who inadvertently discovers that her husband has been keeping a secret from her for years … a secret that leads her to realize that her life is built on a foundation of lies and murder,” Variety reports.
“Liane Moriarty has established herself as one of the defining voices of the modern woman and Blake Lively’s unique combination of vulnerability, strength, and extraordinary talent makes her the perfect actress to realize Moriarty’s creation,” CBS Films President Terry Press said.
Projects examining a woman’s character have fostered many thrillers in the film industry, including the film adaptations of popular novels such as Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
No matter how many projects Lively is currently a part of, however, she firmly holds that family always matters most and that “everything else comes second.” Her and husband Ryan Reynolds are also always conscious of the language they use around their daughters, particularly with using the word “bossy” jokingly.
“There would never be any negative connotation for a man being a boss, so to add a negative connotation on a woman being a boss? It’s belittling,” Lively said. “It doesn’t encourage them to be a boss.” Beyoncé is another celebrity noted to have made the same argument against the word “bossy.”
Expressing the true and three-dimensional reality of women in film is a direction that Hollywood is being actively pushed to consistently pursue. Actresses like Jessica Chastain, Rachel Weisz, and many others who have previously expressed their hope for more roles in such a true-to-life realm would be happy to hear it.
Featured Image by Zennie Abraham on Flickr
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