By Jake Coyle, Film Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --In her first interview since her exit as co-chairman of Sony Pictures, Amy Pascal opened up about her departure and acknowledged it wasn't voluntary.
Speaking to journalist Tina Brown at the Women in the World conference Wednesday night in San Francisco, Pascal joked, "All the women here are doing incredible things in this world. All I did was get fired."
After a long reign as the head of Sony Pictures, the studio last week announced Pascal was stepping down and would start a new production venture at Sony. In her new role as producer, she has already inherited several of the studio's biggest upcoming projects, including Sony's next Spider-man film, to be made in partnership with Marvel Studios.
"I'm 56," she said at the summit. "It's not exactly the time that you want to start all over again. But it's kind of great and I have to and it's going to be a new adventure for me."
Pascal also spoke candidly about the trauma of the hacking attack that preceded her departure. When the extent of the damage was still unraveling and personal information was found to be stolen, Pascal said "everybody was really scared."
"But nagging in the back of my mind, and I kept calling them, like, 'They don't have our emails, right? Tell me they don't have our emails.' 'No, no no,'" recalled Pascal. "Well, then they did. That was a bad moment."
Pascal came under fire, in particular, for emails with producer Scott Rudin in which the two joked about President Barack Obama's presumed taste in movies. Other emails revealed a furious Rudin calling Angelina Jolie names ("the first person I talked to was Angie after that email," said Pascal) and showed her tussling with the powerful producer ("We've been having an ongoing fight since the moment we met," she said of Rudin).
"Everyone understood because we all live in this weird thing together called Hollywood," said Pascal. "If we all actually were nice, it wouldn't work."
Brown founded the Women in the World conference five years ago to bring together women leaders to share stories and advice. Long considered the top female executive in Hollywood, Pascal was known for, among other things, supporting female filmmakers. Speaking to Brown, she said much still needed to change.
"The most important thing we can do in our business is make movies with female protagonists and movies with female villains and movies where the plot of the movie is about them," said Pascal. "The worst thing you can do is be on the sidelines."
Pascal was also entertainingly frank about the inner-workings of the movie business. She called hypersensitive actors "bottomless pits of need."
Said Pascal: "You've never seen anything like it."
Rom-Com Mainstay Hugh Grant Shifts To The Dark Side and He’s Never Been Happier
After some difficulties connecting to a Zoom, Hugh Grant eventually opts to just phone instead.
"Sorry about that," he apologizes. "Tech hell." Grant is no lover of technology. Smart phones, for example, he calls the "devil's tinderbox."
"I think they're killing us. I hate them," he says. "I go on long holidays from them, three or four days at at time. Marvelous."
Hell, and our proximity to it, is a not unrelated topic to Grant's new film, "Heretic." In it, two young Mormon missionaries (Chloe East, Sophie Thatcher) come knocking on a door they'll soon regret visiting. They're welcomed in by Mr. Reed (Grant), an initially charming man who tests their faith in theological debate, and then, in much worse things.
After decades in romantic comedies, Grant has spent the last few years playing narcissists, weirdos and murders, often to the greatest acclaim of his career. But in "Heretic," a horror thriller from A24, Grant's turn to the dark side reaches a new extreme. The actor who once charmingly stammered in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and who danced to the Pointer Sisters in "Love Actually" is now doing heinous things to young people in a basement.
"It was a challenge," Grant says. "I think human beings need challenges. It makes your beer taste better in the evening if you've climbed a mountain. He was just so wonderfully (expletive)-up."
"Heretic," which opens in theaters Friday, is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, co-writers of "A Quiet Place." In Grant's hands, Mr. Reed is a divinely good baddie — a scholarly creep whose wry monologues pull from a wide range of references, including, fittingly, Radiohead's "Creep."
In an interview, Grant spoke about these and other facets of his character, his journey... Read More