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The Big Sick's Zoe Kazan: 'There were more interesting roles for women in the 1990s'

Rising star: Zoe Kazan thinks that there were better roles for women 20 year ago: Dave Benett
Rising star: Zoe Kazan thinks that there were better roles for women 20 year ago: Dave Benett

Actress Zoe Kazan claims there were better roles for women in the Nineties as it was more “commonplace” for big-budget films to have female leads.

The US star, 33, lamented the rise of “explosions and guns” and the decline of “adult people talking” in blockbusters.

She is known for her turns in indie films, including Ruby Sparks and What If, and stars in new romcom The Big Sick, from producer Judd Apatow.

“I’m hesitant to say that things are better [for female actresses] now. They’re better than they were five years ago but they’re not better than they were 20 years ago,” she told the Standard.

Return of the rom-com: Kumail Nanjiani and Zoe Kazan star in The Big Sick (Amazon Studios/Lionsgate )
Return of the rom-com: Kumail Nanjiani and Zoe Kazan star in The Big Sick (Amazon Studios/Lionsgate )

“Studios used to finance movies in the $10 million to $15 million range and they would make films that were about adult people talking, not about explosions and guns.”

She cited last year’s sci-fi epic Arrival, starring Amy Adams, as a move in the right direction for female-led studio films.

“It felt like a throwback to the time when you had Jodie Foster in Contact and Julia Roberts in The Pelican Brief,” she said, referring to the 1997 sci-fi drama and the 1993 legal thriller co-starring Denzel Washington.

“You just had movies being told on a large cinematic scale that were about people’s internal life.”

As the granddaughter of Elia Kazan — who directed Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire and On The Waterfront — Kazan has Hollywood in her veins.

She said: “I think about the films that I saw adults making when I was a kid and a teenager and there were so many more interesting roles for women. Big-budget movies with women at the centre of them in a much more commonplace way than you see now.

In The Big Sick, in cinemas next Friday, Kazan plays an American woman who meets a Pakistani stand-up comedian, played by Kumail Nanjiani, but falls into a coma after they break up.

“I think that both the romance part and the comedy part, it kind of defies the genres on both of those sides,” she said.

The film, directed by Michael Showalter and based on Nanjiani’s own life, has been praised by many critics as a return to old-school romantic comedies.

“If I was asked to list my favourite romantic comedies, most of mine would be more than a decade old,” said Kazan.

“I see a lot of listicles of the top romantic comedies of the last 10 years and they’re almost all small independent films that either got an audience or didn’t get an audience. I think that says a lot about the type of films that people are putting money into now.”