Rosamund Pike & Sacha Baron Cohen Explain Toxic Masculinity With 1 Gesture | Ladies First Interview
Ladies First stars Rosamund Pike and Sacha Baron Cohen spoke with ComingSoon about their new Netflix movie. The duo discussed the film’s tackling of toxic masculinity and how it impacted both of their characters. Ladies First is now streaming on Netflix.x
“Damien Sachs (Sacha Baron Cohen) seemingly has it all: money, power, and a never-ending stream of casual flings. As he prepares to ascend to the role of CEO at a leading advertising agency, his life is turned upside down when he wakes up in his worst nightmare: a parallel world dominated by women. Where he once ruled the boardroom, he now finds himself humbled and going head-to-head with the newly fierce and fearless Alex Fox (Rosamund Pike). With the rules of engagement changed and Alex at the top of her game, the two boldly battle it out in a playful and satirical comedy about what happens when the script is flipped,” says the official synopsis.
Tyler Treese: Sacha, I wanted to ask you about your character in this because you have a tricky balancing act here because Damien has to be a gigantic douchebag, but he also has to have a smidge of likability, so the viewers want to stick with him and see him change. How was it finding that right line there?
Sacha Baron Cohen: It was tricky because you’re right, he’s basically really arrogant. He’s this arrogant, very successful bloke who’s almost running this massive business. I think he struggles with that in this flipped world where suddenly he’s completely powerless, but he’s still arrogant.
So he’s trying to be admired and be attractive to the powerful women who don’t need to be attractive because they’ve got the power, but he’s still got a massive ego. So he’s kind of in this inner conflict where I think it comes out. We have this sex scene halfway through, and that’s the time where he really reveals himself. They’re both struggling to be on top, so to speak.
Tyler Treese: Rosamund, you get to give two sides of this performance. We often see toxic male bosses in films, but it’s so rare to see that type of character played by a woman. So what was most interesting about getting to play that archetype?
Rosamund Pike: It is rare because we’ve seen fabulous female bosses, like Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly, but it’s in the female mold. That’s based on a woman and how a woman imposes power like that. But this is just a carbon copy of how a man does it, which was fun for me and also unsettling. It was about taking up more space. I’m gonna demonstrate Sacha now. I’m just gonna start spreading and watching Sacha shrink [Pike proceeds to manspread].
Sacha Baron Cohen: You’re going to stay like that? Okay, fair enough.
Pike: Thank you. Welcome to my world. It’s about feeling the right to just take up as much space as possible. Thea, our director, was always very helpful with that. It was, “Take more space. Take more time. Own the room. Don’t say thank you, don’t acknowledge.” And you think, “God, right, that’s the recipe,” and that’s quite a scary recipe, isn’t it?
Thanks to Sacha Baron Cohen and Rosamund Pike for taking the time to talk about Ladies First.
Source: Comingsoon.net