Carrie Coon sounds the alarm on declining film roles for women in Hollywood
When Carrie Coon accepted her Artistic Achievement Award at Music Box Theatre earlier this month, she charmed the crowd with self-deprecating humor.
“I've lost four Emmys and two Tonys now,” said Coon, who wore a sleek gray dress and bright purple pumps. “I should have invited my parents to this.”
The Ohio native impressed fans by rattling off more than 30 of her favorite Chicago things, from hot dog chain Portillo's to author Gwendolyn Brooks. And she expressed heartfelt gratitude for the honor, granted by the Chicago International Film Festival.
“I just want you to know that I don't take it for granted,” she told the sold-out crowd. “It's hard work, but it's also a lot of luck.”
Illustrated by her latest film role in Guy Nattiv’s “The Liberation,” as a Holocaust survivor who joins a cult, Coon has a knack for playing complex women across theater stages (“Bug," “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”), TV roles (“The Leftovers,” “White Lotus”) and movies. Still, despite her status as one of the most critically acclaimed working actors today, Coon, 45, still has to fight for major film roles.
In 2025, the number of women and girls leading the top films fell from 55% to 39% — hitting a seven-year low, according to a University of Southern California study. Even “The Liberation,” due in January, faced financial challenges and took more than a decade to make.
“It's hard to get money for films about complicated women,” Coon said before the ceremony, which preceded a screening of the film. “For a leading role like this to come my way is very rare. I’m not typically in that conversation.”
A transformative film role
Viewers at this moment may be most familiar with Coon for her role as the social-climbing matriarch Bertha Russell in “The Gilded Age,” which returns for season four on Sunday. (The cast will also release “Voices of the Gilded Age: The Christmas Album,” on Nov. 6.) Coon said fans can expect to see a different side of character, as she grapples with loneliness amid a rocky marriage.
She filmed the new season of the HBO show after wrapping work as Laurie Duffy in season three of “The White Lotus,” an opportunity she considered crucial for the “longevity of her career” as a woman in her 40s.
Coon, who is also known for dynamic theater roles, hopes she can continue to portray multifaceted women in future productions. In “The Liberation,” Coon’s character, Rita Cooper, is based on Nattiv’s real-life grandmother. Coon stars alongside her husband, actor and playwright Tracy Letts, who portrays her spouse in the film, as well as Bella Ramsey (“The Last of Us”) and Odessa Young (“Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere”), who play their daughters. Lily James (“Downton Abbey”) takes on the role of the alluring cult leader, Ricki King.
Coon prepared for the role by watching testimonials from Holocaust survivors, including those recorded by Nattiv’s grandmother for the Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Center. And she said teaming up with her real-life husband was ideal, not only because of the built-in intimacy, but Letts’ strength as a supporting character.
“Tracy is not the kind of actor who is going to take all the air out of a room,” said Coon, who, like Letts, is a member of Steppenwolf Theatre’s ensemble. “I knew I was getting a great ensemble player who was there to make me look as good as I could look in any scene.”
Coon conveys Cooper’s depression — and repression — as she abandons her family and bank job for a more “spiritual” life under King’s tutelage. Though she finds relief from the trauma of her past, she winds up trading one form of imprisonment for another.
But Coon said she can relate to Cooper’s desire to relinquish control.
“As a woman who's a wife and a mother who makes decisions all day, I totally understand,” she said. “I think Guy has done a really good job humanizing every decision [Cooper] makes that takes her down this path.”
The character undergoes both an emotional and physical transformation in the role, which required Coon to lose some weight.
“So often people don't experience frailty or weakness in my work, and so it was nice for me to get to explore that part of myself,” she said. “We cut my hair, which men get Oscars for, but that was fun for me. It almost feels like two different characters.”
A rocky path to the screen
Nattiv had a bumpy journey getting “The Liberation” to the big screen. Before he secured a distribution deal with Bleecker Street, studios tried to persuade him to do everything from removing the Holocaust narrative to changing the non-linear structure of the film.
Coon chalked those hurdles up to the challenging landscape for female-led films in the U.S. She lamented the lack of representation, especially for women of color, in movies receiving awards buzz this year.
“So often the films that are in consideration for these awards have the same five or six movie stars,” she said. “They're great, and we want to see them. And yet, I wish there was more room for other people.”
Coon said she also tries to seek out women directors, but they are facing their own struggles. In 2025, only about 10% of films were directed by women, setting progress back to 2018 levels, according to a Hollywood Diversity report by the University of California, Los Angeles. And this year, Venice Film Festival jury president Maggie Gyllenhaal made headlines when she spoke out about the lack of female directors in the main competition.
“I work with all these male auteurs,” Coon said during a Q&A following “The Liberation” screening at Music Box Theatre. “The hard truth is that women don't get a chance. Even when they make a good movie, they rarely get a chance to make another one.”
Fans can see Coon in two forthcoming movies by women directors: “Honeymoon/Funeral,” a romantic comedy by Nahnatchka Khan, and “Daddy Daughter Dance,” a comedy shot in Chicago by Kelly O’Sullivan, along with her filmmaking partner, Alex Thompson.
Besides telling stories about complicated women, Coon is also interested in something else women aren’t typically asked to do: push their bodies to new limits. It could be anything from kicking butt in an action movie or training to portray a dancer, she said.
“I want to get ripped and wreak havoc,” she said. “I’d like to do something that requires some rigor, where I’d have to really learn something new.”
As parents of two children, ages 5 and 8, Coon and Letts also have to consider what’s best for their family when evaluating projects. But whether it’s Coon traveling to Thailand to film “White Lotus,” or Letts starring in “Death of a Salesman” at the National Theatre later in 2027, some jobs are too good for the New York residents to pass up.
“He's going to be a tremendous Willy Loman,” Coon said of her husband. “But for him to go to London and do a play for six months, that's going to be really hard.”
The couple also aspires to revive Letts’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “August Osage County,” which premiered at Steppenwolf Theatre nearly 20 years ago. Coon, who hopes to portray Barbara Fordham, believes the work is especially relevant today.
“Tracy’s work is always so prescient,” she said. “I think people will be stunned by the resonance in the way he's talking about this country in that play.”
These days, Coon’s political pursuits are not limited to the stage or screen. She has ramped up her activism, which includes campaigning for Caitlin Conley, the Democrat currently running against incumbent Rep. Mike Lawler in New York’s 17th district. She also has spoken out against President Trump’s deportation campaign. (She ended her speech at Music Box Theatre by yelling, “F— ICE!”)
She said her children have inspired her advocacy.
“I do feel it's incumbent upon me to be an example for them about what it means to be a good citizen and a good steward of your community,” she said.
Ver nota original ↗
¿Querés un resumen rápido de esta noticia, hecho por nuestra IA?
