Nathalie Emmanuel says Hollywood is finally providing more opportunities for women.
Nathalie Emmanuel
The 32-year-old 'Game of Thrones' actress was recently nominated for an Emmy for her role in 'Die Hart' - in which she plays an action star in the making alongside Kevin Hart - and Nathalie says things have improved for women on screen over the past decade.
She told The Hollywood Reporter: "In the past five or 10 years, you’ve been seeing a lot more opportunities for women — as in, they’re not just a male-gaze version of what they think a female action hero is. The characters are nuanced with complex personalities and not like they’ve just changed the pronouns to “she” when it could have been played by a guy.
"I’ve found myself in a couple of action things, but I’m not really doing crazy action in the way that I did in Die Hart — this was the first time I’d done proper fight scenes, and I actually got to really get involved physically, and that was really exciting. I felt really proud of it because I got to draw on a lot of my own experience of physical activity, like boxing and yoga, and then I finally got to apply it and learn new things as well. But yeah, I think that there are more and more action parts for women happening and the women who exist in those spaces are less tropey or stereotypical. That’s the change that we’re really in desperate need of, and I love that."
Nathalie also admitted she was shocked by her Emmy nomination.
She said: "I got a message from one of our producers, Candice [Wilson, who sent] me a screen capture of my nomination on the list. I was like, 'Huh? What is that?' My brain just did not compute that I had been nominated, and I didn’t really understand what was going on. It was such a lovely surprise, I was so blown away and didn’t quite know what to say or what to do. I was just kind of stunned for a moment, and then when it settled in that that had happened, I felt really proud of the thing that we’ve made. I’ve been doing this a long time and to have someone say, 'Oh, we like that thing you did,' it means so much and it’s really, really humbling."
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