For four years, Kate McKinnon has been slaying audiences on Saturday Night Live. You’ve probably guffawed at her Hillary Clinton impression, cheered as she won an Emmy and nursed a major crush on Ghostbusters’ Jillian Holtzmann.
She’s finally going to steal the lead in a major film. She’ll play Grunhilda the Lunch Witch in the adaptation of young adult novel The Lunch Witch, about a malevolent sorceress forced to work in a school cafeteria. The sorceress connects with a misfit student named Madison, who is the only person who believes in Grunhilda’s magic, and the two help each other against all odds.
Clay Kaytis, who directed The Angry Birds Movie, will direct.
Sadly, this is not the edgy girl-on-girl lesbian romantic comedy that fans were hoping for. In fact, Grunhilda the Lunch Witch isn’t queer. But the fact that the leading actress in a major motion picture is a lesbian is a major leap forward.
McKinnon is one of the few openly gay actresses whose commercial career seems to be on the rise. Ellen Page, who acted in Juno (2007 – grossed $231 million) and Inception (2010 – grossed $800 million), has not starred in a film that’s grossed over $20 million since then. Kristen Stewart, known for the Twilight series (grossed over $1 billion), has stuck to low-budget independent films since openly dating Alicia Cargile.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with Page’s and Stewart’s career decisions. Perhaps they’re more comfortable with small indie films, or perhaps they’ve found it more difficult to find big-budget work in Hollywood since coming out. It’s most likely a combination of both. That said, it’s refreshing for an openly gay actress to head up a major film.
McKinnon fans agree that her step into stardom is long overdue. She has, according to The Daily Beast, “that rare quality that megastars have of commanding our attention even when they aren’t actually doing anything.”
The Lunch Witch is expected to open in 2018.
