The New Generation of 'The Women' Have Arrived
By Carita Rizzo, Special to Hollywood.com
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Saturday, September 13, 2008
HW: What frustrates you about a lot of the roles you do get offered these days?
Eva Mendes: As I’m playing the other woman in this film, I think for me it’s the lack of range. I would be an idiot to have passed up this role, this opportunity to work with everybody and also to be a total supporter. It’s not like I don’t want to do these kinds of roles, they’re fun and I get to work with amazing women. But I want to get the same stuff Drew Barrymore gets offered, you know what I mean? She’s very girl-next-door.
HW: This movie is about girlfriends. What is a girlfriend for you?
Annette Bening: Well, I am really lucky because I have such wonderful close girlfriends in my life. And some of them are from when I was a little girl. We used to play pretend together. And then through my life, a few people I've really stayed close to. There’s a kind of sustenance that you get from your female friends that is so unique. And I know that, in so many ways, especially if I’m struggling with something or dealing with something, if I sit down with my girlfriends or one friend or have a lunch or a dinner or drink or whatever, a coffee, it puts me back on track. So there’s something really deeply sustaining about that.
Meg Ryan: I feel the same way. I have a very close tribe of girlfriends, who I don’t know who I would even be without. I feel that they’re particularly valuable because it just feels like it’s such a brave new world. There’s so many opportunities for women. And it feels like even more than looking up to a generation above me that this sort of like holding hands and going forward with my peers and everybody figuring it out at the same time and sharing what they know, is like so much fun and it’s such a valuable part of just the day. Even about how I parent my kids or how I have a career, too. All of that is something that I share with my friends and we’re all doing it in our own way. It's like we’re sort of astronauts about it.