Emma Stone Tears Down the ‘Total Garbage’ Sexist Advice She Got at the Start of Her Career

There’s no question that the act of making movies is a herculean feat at just about every turn. From perfecting the script to getting everyone’s collaborative ducks in a row, it’s a wonder that anything gets made at all.

But there’s perhaps no hurdle more exhausting than sifting through the notes and concerns of studio executives, who tend to make up for their lack of creative literacy with the fact that they have the money the real artists need to get the movie off the ground and into theaters. In a different timeline, Barbie of all things was partly butchered by these people.

And their potential for clueless drivel doesn’t end there. During her acceptance speech for Desert Palm Achievement Award at the Palm Springs Film Awards (as reported by The Hollywood Reporter), Poor Things star Emma Stone recalled a piece of advice she once received from a Hollywood studio executive when she was just a teenager, and with 20 years of hindsight now on her side, she had no trouble tearing it to shreds:

“I went to one of those general meetings that they sometimes send you to. An executive told me that for male actors, it’s a marathon, not a sprint, and in his eyes, for women, it was a sprint, not a marathon. That was 20 years ago, and I realized that advice is total garbage because the majority of the women that I look up to in this industry, many of whom are in this room, have proven that as time goes on, life and work only get more interesting and more fulfilling.”

Of course, every woman can take one glance at that piece of advice and know right away what it’s code for, and even 20 years on, the intertwining roots of sexism and ageism remain as stubborn now as they were back then.

Luckily, we also now live in a world where films like Poor Things and Barbie—which have no issue with inspiring audiences and deftly making them uncomfortable in the same breath—are taking up more and more space in the Hollywood conversation, and while these prejudices may never entirely go away, taking them to task at every opportunity is of utmost importance if we ever want to shove them to the fringes where they belong.

(featured image: Searchlight Pictures)