Embracing Messy Women: Elle Fanning, Kerry Washington, Gina Rodriguez and Janelle James on How Comedy Lets Characters Be Flawed
variety.comSophia Scorziello editor What does it mean to be a funny girl? Actors Elle Fanning (“The Great”), Janelle James (“Abbott Elementary”), Gina Rodriguez (“Not Dead Yet”) and Kerry Washington (“UnPrisoned”) discuss being a woman in comedy at Variety TV FYC Fest’s Disney Women of Comedy panel, moderated by Variety’s Angelique Jackson.
Each TV character they play — whether she’s an empress of Russia, a public school principal, a family therapist or a journalist who talks to the dead — is layered and complicated.
Through comedy, these actors have found the freedom to be contradictory, to not have it all together and to be a little messy.
When asked how she trusts her comedy, Rodriguez was frank: “I don’t,” she said. “I just became a mother, so trusting myself is very difficult.” Rodriguez was pregnant for most, if not all, of filming for “Not Dead Yet.” “I thought this was a For Your Consideration for my baby for best performance in utero,” she joked. “It was really exciting being able to see somebody who is striving and failing and learning from our failures,” Rodriguez said of her character, Nell, in “Not Dead Yet.” “Because that’s all I do.
Read more on variety.com