In my opinion, in that role, she is the female Bond, for me.
- Hi guys, it's Mie. - And I'm Joe.
And we're ready to talk about our favourite leading ladies in film.
The internet definition of a leading lady,
it says it's an informal term for an actress
who plays a secondary lead or supporting role,
usually a love interest to the leading actor in a film or play.
How do we feel about that?
I mean, I think we can agree that that's kind of changed a lot
over the last few years.
It seems really just ridiculous and outdated to me.
Yeah, just a little bit barbaric, just a little bit.
- Yeah. - Quite a bit.
On the other hand, Cambridge Dictionary,
they say 'a female actor who has the most important part
in a play or a film'. That's a lot better, surely?
- I reckon so, yeah. - That makes more sense.
It's much more general.
Like, the first one was very oddly specific
and just very oddly misogynistic.
I really like the fact that it uses the word actor instead of actress
because I feel like that's a bit more outdated now.
What do you think about that?
Why have different terms for them? It just, like, works.
It doesn't really matter, their gender.
It matters that they are performing a character.
There's this bit in Between Two Ferns
where the interviewer is interviewing Brie Larson and he asks her,
'You've won Best Actress. Have you ever considered winning Best Actor?'
It makes me laugh because it is kind of absurd
that we have those two different terms.
And it's always considered that the female equivalent of an actor
is, like, lower down and less experienced,
like you said with Brie Larson.
There's certainly a divide there.
That definitely needs to change.
I definitely feel like there's more of a variety of female characters
that are easier to relate to, because I feel like before,
there was just a stuck sort of image
of what a female character should be like, therefore just making
women in real life feel like they have to be a certain way.
And I feel like nowadays it's more like you can be anything,
because being a woman isn't one thing.
There's a whole spectrum of different characters.
You can have evil characters,
you can have the love interest, that's completely fine,
but you can also have someone who's strong,
you can have someone who's in the lead.
And I think it's just great to see that reflected in film,
that you can just be a normal person and not just one sort of stereotype.
Yeah, there's so much variation now,
I mean, especially in action.
I feel like platforms like DC and Marvel
have been really giving women much greater representation,
especially in the action genre,
but that's built off characters from last century
like Sarah Connor in Terminator and Sigourney Weaver as Ripley in Alien
who are sort of universal characters. Personally, I really look up to them.
It's a character that just so happens to be female, it's genderless.
Are there any male roles that you would like to see played by a woman?
Hmm, right.
I don't know, because I feel like maybe
action films could use more female representation,
like maybe James Bond, for example.
I think maybe a female Bond would be necessary.
Yeah, I feel like a female equivalent of Bond,
because it was recently said that the writer of Bond said that
she'd much rather have a female equivalent of Bond,
because it's almost unfair to give a woman, an actor,
the male equivalent, like, the male character, and make them play that.
It's much fairer to give them someone for girls to look up to
who's someone they can call their own.
Yeah, instead of completely just erasing male characters
and replacing them with female characters,
you should have both sides of the spectrum,
having men represented and having women represented,
and just having this original character for them to claim
as their own, and not just having to replace someone else in the process.
Just because a male character has been made female,
it doesn't mean that it's-,
like, they can go together.
When I watch a film, I don't think,
'Right, okay, so the main thing about this character is they are male.'
I don't go in watching that.
I think, 'Right, okay, so there's this and there's this.'
It doesn't make any sense at all.
I feel like Kaitlyn Dever is certainly very much up-and-coming.
She's really changing perceptions about women in film,
but she's in a lot of indie films, in my opinion.
I feel it's time we see her taking the sort of character that she wants,
someone that pushes boundaries,
but putting that in a more mainstream environment,
like Marvel or somewhere a bit more blockbuster-y.
Yeah, she's definitely up-and-coming and obviously she was in Booksmart,
and she is taking on main roles, but like you said, it's in indie films.
One of the things I love is, in an interview that we did with her,
Get Into Film did with her, she was so down to earth and so fun
and she was clearly-, she has such a great relationship...
- You can definitely see it. - ...with her co-star, Beanie.
It's just so awesome to see her clearly being someone like us,
and there was this bit where she talks about compliments.
I love how she's struggling to take that compliment,
it's something that we can relate to, I think.
In real life, how well do you take compliments?
- Not very well. - Not well at all, actually.
Like, I always just recoil. 'Oh, but probably not, though.'
- 'That's probably not me.' - It's true.
I'm like, 'You look so great.' She's like, 'No!'
Yeah, and they also talk about how they don't have boundaries
with their relationship on set, and I think it's just really nice to see
two leading ladies just supporting each other
and just, like, having a good time when they're filming, it's just nice.
Yeah.
I think the leading lady that I most admire is Lupita Nyong'o.
She's got such a wonderful grounded nature to her.
She clearly understands herself, and then when she comes to her roles,
she's always so powerful with her empathy.
She's able to understand who she's playing.
So she's talked extensively in interviews
about how she understood her characters, she knew that
they were different, she wanted a more naturalistic approach.
- She's a very versatile actress. - She is so versatile.
And just also a very nice person,
she's very open about her and her characters.
In Us, she mentions how she's queen and cockroach,
which I find really interesting.
With the Red character, there was a little more of a stylistic approach.
Jordan had described her as queen and cockroach,
and so that embodying the body, you know, of a cockroach
and how still it can be, and also how skittish and skittery.
For me, I do feel like she can hold up a whole film,
no matter what it is. - Oh, yeah.
- She is amazing. - Mm-hmm.
I think there's this moment in 12 Years a Slave
in which she's holding this piece of soap,
and she's so raw and delicate in that moment.
Every time I see it, it gives me goosebumps.
It's clear that she was able to put herself into that character's mindset
and really, when I'm watching her,
I'm not seeing Lupita Nyong'o playing her characters.
I'm seeing her character.
I stink so much, I make myself gag.
Five hundred pounds of cotton, day in, day out!
More than any man here, and for that, I will be clean.
That's all I ask.
I feel like she could play anything.
- Regardless of gender as well. - Very much.
I'm looking forward to her playing a chair in her next role, just-,
but like, just anything, she could easily take on and just seize it.
Oh yeah, make it hers. She's just brilliant, I love her.
My favourite leading lady of all time, and she's pretty recent
but she is literally my leading lady of all time, is Awkwafina.
I just completely love her.
She's hilarious, she's got such a unique and just vibrant personality,
but she's also just really talented at acting, simple as that.
She is so down-to-earth, like with Lupita,
she's just completely full of joy when she plays her characters.
And I think, even with films like The Farewell, she really does manage
to bring a really unique stance on the character.
And I thought it was just really interesting to see
how she managed to convey so much in that film when she wasn't speaking,
and especially the grief for her grandma,
because The Farewell is about when her grandma is about to pass away.
She manages to convey so much in just her eyes alone.
If you go, Nai Nai will find out right away.
Billi!
What's wrong?
Why aren't you talking?
It's been too long since
we've all been together like this.
I've been looking forward to this day for a long time.
Take a big bite!
(laughter)
She's just really good at bringing something to the set.
Like, I think on the red carpet she said
that she got slapped across the face by a monkey,
and like, no one would say that apart from Awkwafina.
I encountered a monkey, he slapped me across the face,
so I had a couple of adventures, yeah.
- She's definitely going places. - Oh, yeah.
I can really see that she's making-,
she's really carving out a name for her in the industry.
An actor I really look up to as well,
it's kind of on the flip side of Lupita, is Charlize Theron.
She's able to take on some really cool action roles
and really strong action heroes that would typically be a male role.
Like, in Mad Max: Fury Road, although she doesn't necessarily play Max,
she's playing-, basically she is the leading character in that film
and she's standing up for her fellow woman,
but she's also not being defined by her character and their gender.
She's taking on this role and just doing what's right,
and I find that really inspiring.
She understands her characters, like Lupita,
but at the same time, is able to take on a more unbelievable role
like in Mad Max or Atomic Blonde, where she gives a very gritty
and very physical performance that you'd see in
possibly a more male-oriented action film.
In my opinion, in that role, she is the female Bond, for me.
Yeah, she is the female Bond in that.
She does a lot of similar things as Bond would.
- Those stunts, though. - Yeah, exactly,
and she's able to put herself in that and do what would be considered
a male stunt as her character.
Anything a man can do, Charlize Theron can do.
- (laughter) Better even, maybe. - Mmm, yeah, definitely.
Also, I feel like she's able to do more sensitive roles.
So with Kubo and the Two Strings, I feel like, as the monkey,
we won't reveal anything about the monkey, but as the monkey,
she was definitely really sensitive.
She really managed to just bring something different.
So watching her in all these action films
and then seeing her voicing the monkey,
I was like 'wow, this is just completely different'.
And also, I respect people who can do voice acting,
because that is a completely different ball pit over there,
and she manages to bring everything in her voice in that film as well,
so she's got all the bases covered.
I'm a big action fan.
The fact that she can take on a spirit guardian ninja monkey
protecting a child with a magical guitar, it kind of shows-,
I don't think there's any way of showing more versatility than that.
I mean, yeah.
I have to say, a lot of people do judge me on this,
but Rebel Wilson as a leading lady, she is just amazing.
Any film that has Rebel Wilson on it, I'll be watching it.
Well, mmm, not any. Not Cats, sorry.
That's an exception, we'll let that slide.
But in Pitch Perfect, I think that was the first time I ever saw her,
she was obviously Fat Amy, and she was just hilarious.
She stole that whole film.
Obviously all the characters had something else to bring,
but Rebel Wilson just made that film her own,
and she just managed to make it so hilarious.
She brought that general Fat Amy style comedy
to a lot of her other films,
but she's also able to bring so much more and she's just the best.
She supports all the other ladies.
I think in an interview, she mentioned that
she could throw down someone for any of her female friends.
I mean, come on, she would take someone down for her female friends.
She's an amazing leading lady.
I feel like, I feel like I could throw down.
If I'm ever out with my girls in real life, something happened,
yeah, I feel like I could protect myself, definitely.
On Netflix there's Isn't It Romantic,
and it was really nice to see her reversing
the typical Rom-com style of lady and making it her own,
and making it a story about self-love as well as romance,
and I thought that was just so nice to see.
So I think, in the end, the qualities that we most admire
in a leading lady are that they're grounded-,
- Versatile. - Very much.
- That they're kind. - Maybe a bit of humour.
Yep, and I think just in general, a decent human being.
Yeah, I mean, it's nice to know.
These are all our favourites, but definitely let us know
who you would add to the list.
Ooh, Scarlett Johansson.
Okay, mmm, Emma Watson.
Saoirse Ronan.
Ooh, okay, Brie Larson.
Octavia Spencer.
Let us know down below in the comments.