Tag Archives: Sigourney Weaver

Michelle Rodriguez Says Role In Controversial Transgender Thriller Made Her Understand Her Own Femininity

Michelle Rodriguez says her role in a controversial film The Assignment (released in the UK as Tomboy) – a movie about a male assassin who is forcibly turned into a woman, with one of the most hashtag-problematic plots to emerge in recent times – allowed her to realise her own femininity.

The film was widely panned by the transgender community, but the film’s screenwriter Denis Hamill hit out at critics last week.

Rodriguez has spoken again of the film, after previously defending it.

She told Page Six:

I had to tape my breasts down, and I still looked like a hermaphrodite.”

Going on she said playing the character made her realise she had been more feminine than she thought:

All my life I felt alienated by women. They were into the lipstick, nails, and dressing up, and I always felt like a tomboy, like I didn’t fit in.

I felt like I had masculine qualities versus feminine qualities just because I am an alpha. I do what I want, and never let anybody tell me otherwise. I am kind of hardcore about that. But then when I go and actually play a man, I realized I am such a girl; there is nothing manly about me.”

I was so confused growing up, so it took playing a man to make me a woman.”

Rodriguez previously rejected criticism of the film because she is bisexual.

What is transgender? Is it a psychological thing or is it an operation, and does the LGBTQ community own the operation? Do they have a branding right over a sex change?

Are they mad that somebody decided to take their branded transgender operation and use it on heterosexual people? It’s a B-movie noir genre comic book take on something.

I’m bisexual. I do guys. I do girls. You can’t really argue with me because I’m you. So if I do a movie, I’d never do a movie with the intention of offending anybody in the LGBT community because I’m a part of it.”

 

The First Trailer For Michelle Rodriguez’s Controversial Gender Reassignment Action Film Is Out

The first trailer for The Assignment has arrived and it’s just as tasteless and cringe-worthy as the longline would lead you to believe.

From legendary genre director Walter Hill (The Warriors, The Driver and 48 Hours, among others), The Assignment stars Michelle Rodriguez as Frank Kitchen, an ace hitman who sets out a revenge spree after he is captured by a sadistic, amoral surgeon (Sigourney Weaver) and subject to a forced gender reassignment surgery.

The film was originally called Tomboy, then (Re)Assignment and finally the generic The Assignment, which seems destined to lure in a lot of people who have no idea what they’re getting into.

However, its sensationalistic plot has not gone down well with the trans community, who hit out at Rodriguez and dismissed the film as exploitation.

Rodriguez last year defended playing a transgender person in the film The Assignment because she is bisexual.

Speaking to Reuters, she said:

What is transgender? Is it a psychological thing or is it an operation, and does the LGBTQ community own the operation? Do they have a branding right over a sex change?

Are they mad that somebody decided to take their branded transgender operation and use it on heterosexual people?

It’s a B-movie noir genre comic book take on something.

I’m bisexual. I do guys. I do girls. You can’t really argue with me because I’m you.

So if I do a movie, I’d never do a movie with the intention of offending anybody in the LGBT community because I’m a part of it.”

But in 2015, a GLAAD spokesperson said of the film:

We haven’t read the script, but it’s disappointing to see filmmakers turning what is a life-saving medical procedure for transgender people into a sensationalistic plot device.”

Director Walter Hill insisted other films have dealt with similar plots in the past.

I don’t know why this one stirred up such interest in a way that those didn’t except that I think the transgender situation has been more in the headlines the last couple of years.

I don’t know. I’m a storyteller, it’s a crime story, it’s a noir vision, it’s comic book in a way and quite a few women have said to me that after seeing the movie, they feel empowered by it.”

Michelle Rodriguez Says She Drew On Her Own Bullying Experience For New Role

Actress Michelle Rodriguez says she can sympathise with her new movie’s lead character, because she was targeted by bullies as a youngster too.

In her new film Milton’s Secret, she plays a teacher mentoring a young bullied student.

Talking to The Hollywood Reporter, Rodriguez said the theme of the movie was something she knew all too well.

After moving to Jersey City, New Jersey at the age of 17, she quickly became an easy target as the outsider among her peers in her rough neighbourhood.

I was bullied as a kid, but I dealt with it a lot differently because I was at a different level growing up in Jersey City. If you didn’t adapt, you die, or parts of your soul would be crushed. People were just really mean in Jersey City. I had to learn to fight really early.”

Milton’s Secret, adapted from the 2008 Eckhart Tolle children’s novel of the same name, also stars Donald Sutherland and opened to mixed reviews at the Vancouver Film Festival last week.

Another of Rodriguez’s films premiered on the film festival circuit this year, the controversial (Re) Assignment, in which she plays a male assassin who is involuntarily given a sex change by a deranged surgeon played by Sigourney Weaver.

It was panned following its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival in Canada last month, and has been heavily blasted for using gender-changing surgery as a sensational plot device.

Michelle attempted to defended the storyline and told viewers not to take it seriously because it is a “B-movie noir genre comic book take”.

She added

I’m bisexual. I do guys. I do girls. You can’t really argue with me because I’m you. So if I do a movie, I’d never do a movie with the intention of offending anybody in the LGBT community because I’m a part of it.”

The actress also told her critics to ‘lay off’ after she posted an image of herself in a full beard talking about the role.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BKT6sT_gID6

Some of the followers commented:

Just because you’re bi, doesn’t make it okay to be a d*ck and mock transgender people.”

Added another:

You know what makes me want to scream? People turning my identity into some sort of sick joke for the sake of cheap entertainment.”

Rodriguez addressed the pre-released criticism to THR stating:

It’s an action genre film, and we’re not psychological or deep about [being trans], so lay off. It’s an entertainment piece. Calm down, guys. I’m on your team.”

Slated to be released in theatres next year, the film is a proud achievement for the actress, despite the opposition.

She wrote on her post she believes the industry is ‘running low on edgy creativity’ and she expressed her frustration with being bored by ‘the status quo’ by shooting ‘crazy B movie indy.’

Michelle Rodriguez Comes Underfire From LGBT Groups Over ‘Gender Reassignment Thriller’ Tomboy

GLAAD has criticised the makers of a new Hollywood thriller – Tomboy, A Revenger’s Tale, which chronicles the story of hitman (played by Michelle Rodriguez), who falls into the clutches of a rogue surgeon, and is forced to undergo gender reassignment surgery against his will.

The film stars Michelle Rodriguez as a male assassin, who later takes revenge on his tormentor, who will be played by Sigourney Weaver.

A spokesperson for Glaad, said producers had picked an inappropriate storyline for their project.

GLAAD’s director of programs for transgender media, Nick Adams, told The Hollywood Reporter.

We haven’t read the script, but it’s disappointing to see film-makers turning what is a life-saving medical procedure for transgender people into a sensationalistic plot device. We are at a crucial moment in the public’s understanding of transgender issues, and stories like these have the potential to undermine the progress we’ve worked so hard to achieve.”

The film’s announcement comes at a time when Hollywood is coming under increasing pressure to clean up its negative portrayals of LGBT people.

Titled Tomboy, A Revenger’s Tale, the film is the latest project from The Warriors and Bullet To The Head director Walter Hill. Hill will be directing from a script by author and occasional screenwriter Denis Hamill. Rodriguez and Weaver, meanwhile, previously worked together on James Cameron’s Avatar