Cathy Schulman admits she wasn’t able to hit 50-50 inclusion goals on her Netflix mom comedy, ‘Otherhood,’ pointing to difficulties “on the crewing side” and suggests more needs to be done to support women at the start and middle of their careers.
Oscar-winning producer Cathy Schulman easily offers up that she’s enjoying an “amazing” year with two movies shooting back-to-back. First, a teen tearjerker titled Five Feet Apart starring Cole Sprouse and Haley Lu Richardson and a motherhood comedy titled Otherhood starring Oscar winner Patricia Arquette and Oscar nominees Felicity Huffman and Angela Bassett.
The latter, directed by Sex and the City executive producer Cindy Chupack, making her feature directorial debut, has been a labor of love that Schulman and Chupack had been shepherding for eight years before it landed at Netflix. That still hasn’t been long enough for their crew to match conversations about inclusion and equal representation.
But Schulman — the outgoing president of Women in Film — will also be the first to tell you that, too. “I’m calling myself out on it,” Schulman told THR at the org’s recent Crystal + Lucy Awards on June 13 in Beverly Hills. “I wish it were easier. I was completely committed on all of my movies and shows this year to [hire] 50-50 men and women across the board, but it’s not that easy. On the crewing side, we have so much work to do at Women in Film and its allied partners to continue to enable the pipeline because you can’t hire 50-50 before there are people to hire.”
That said, her crew does have many women in key roles such as editor Sunny Hodge, production designer Kara Lindstrom, set decoration Stephanie Q. Bowen, unit production manager Katie Mustard, costumer supervisor Vera Chow and music supervisor Linda Cohen.
Schulman points to “investing in the beginning and the middles of the careers of women who are being left behind” as a way to push forward. “When somebody like me who literally leads this movement talking about this can’t get it done, you wonder how hard it must be for other people who are less invested,” she said.
A version of this story first appeared in the July 11 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
Be the first to comment