Elizabeth Banks Was Told She “Can’t Direct Men”

With three features under her belt and two on the way, Elizabeth Banks recently opened up about the misogyny she’s faced as a woman director.

The 4x Emmy nominee opened up about being told she “can’t direct men,” despite having worked with the late Ray Liotta on the 2023 dark comedy horror Cocaine Bear, which she used as an example.

“I was literally told because I direct films that, ‘You can’t direct men. They won’t follow you,’” said Banks on The Kelly Clarkson Show. “And then I directed Ray Liotta, who played Henry Hill in Goodfellas, and I think I nailed it. Check the list off. It’s all good.”

Banks added, “Despite me knowing that I’m in a great club, it’s a really small club, and it needs more representation. We need more storytellers from different perspectives, angles. And we need more audiences to watch. … I’m having a lot of fun making sure that women have a real sense of agency in whatever they’re doing, whatever stories I’m telling.”

Banks discussed her experience directing while promoting her new Apple TV+ series The Miniature Wife, in which she plays a writer who is made to feel figuratively small by her scientist husband (Matthew Macfadyen), who accidentally shrinks her to six inches small.

“It’s a very funny show, but what I really was drawn to was, we get to sort of talk about a big feeling, which is feeling diminished by a partner,” explained Banks. “Or in your professional life, in your romantic life, I think we all have that relatable experience of being made to feel small every once in a while. And in this case, it’s literal and physical, and we get to sort of look at that from an absurdist lens, but talk about some big issues that I think people understand.”

In addition to Cocaine Bear, Banks has directed Charlie’s Angels (2019), Pitch Perfect 2 (2015) and a short in 2013’s Movie 43.