Recently, Jessica Chastain talked about how she feels that roles for women have taken a step back, and it looks as if Oscar winning director Danny Boyle agrees with her. Boyle, known for his films Trainspotting and and Slumdog Millionaire, discussed the subject of female characters in reagards to his latest film, Trance.

The film stars James McAvoy and Rosario Dawson and follows Simon (McAvoy) an art auctioneer who partners with a hypnotherapist Elizabeth (Dawson) in order to recover a stolen painting. Boyle specifically talked about the character of Elizabeth.

Elizabeth’s obviously a classic femme fatale, using her allure, her beauty to manipulate the men but I didn’t want the icy blonde Hitchcock kind of thing.

Boyle went on to say that he felt Dawson hadn’t been given roles that fully used her talent because actresses are often given roles that lack complexity, even if the role appears to be a leading role.

They play the apparent lead in a film but when you look at the part it’s not that great, they’re like a figurehead. It’s nice to give them a role that puts them in the engine room of the film. 

I’ve been guilty of not doing that. 

At a screening of Trance this past weekend at WonderCon, Boyle continued talking about having complex female lead characters. 

The idea of a woman right at the center of the film is something that I was really attracted to and actually failed miserably to do in all the succeeding years

It’s great that Boyle admits his own guilt in not creating complex female roles — remember Latika played Frieda Pinto in Slumdog Millionaire?), hopefully he’s changed that with Trance which opens on Friday.   PS- he also should publicly own up to the fact that he had a co-director on Slumdog Millionaire – Loveleen Tanden.

Danny Boyle opens up about women in film (Fanshare)

Danny Boyle finds his inner feminist with heist film
‘Trance’ (Los Angeles Times: Hero Complex)