In light of her recent, rumored casting in Paul W. S. Anderson’s remake of Roger Corman’s Death Race, originally reported by The Hollywood Reporter last week, I thought it would be interesting to reflect on some of Joan Allen’s comments regarding her career and the path of women in Hollywood in general at the press day for The Bourne Ultimatum a few weeks back. To wit:
“I feel fortunate because I’ve gotten to do some interesting things in the past four or five years. But it’s not like I’m getting 50 scripts
a week and turning down all of them, or 49 of them — it’s really not like that,” says Allen.
“I’ll go through periods where I get a few scripts a week and then I go no, this
isn’t the right thing. So it’s not like the choices are voluminous. But within
that I still have gotten enough to satisfy me. I have a 13-year-old daughter, I
can’t work back-to-back, I can’t be away from her that much. It’s kind of great
for me if I do one film a year or even one film every two years, or year and a
half. Because I spend all my time with her then. I save my money and I put
it away and I don’t overextend myself, and I’m sort of personally gratified that
way.”
television series, with Glenn Close and Holly Hunter and Kyra Sedgwick, and I
think that’s very exciting, because I think a lot of them are more interesting
parts for them,” continues Allen. “I see that as opening up more, for women of a certain age to
have another… employment opportunity. Because sometimes the roles you get
are someone’s mom, and it’s not very interesting, or you’re getting dumped by
your husband so he can go off…”
Or sometimes those roles are in Death Race, you know? Allen supposedly joins Jason Statham, Tyrese Gibson and Ian McShane in what seems to be an exceedingly well cast piece of Hollywood rib-nudging, however desultory it may turn out to be. (After all, Rollerball didn’t exactly wow dystopian futurists.) It remains to be seen whether the film can top or add anything to the social commentary provided by Daniel Minahan’s Series 7, which came out six years ago, seven by the time Death Race sees the light of day.