Here are some photos of Michelle Rodriguez at the Furious 7 premiere (Kaiser covered solo Elsa Pataky and everyone else). Michelle’s wearing a Vivienne Westwood dress, which is gorgeous under certain lighting. The silhouette flatters Michelle, but the jacquard overlay is the wrong color. It looks dusty, for lack of a better descriptor. I would have preferred a darker overlay, but I’m chuffed to see Michelle favoring Westwood designs lately.

Michelle has a new interview with NJ.com. The most interesting part is how she picks her roles. You’ll never see her play the girlfriend who fades into the background. Michelle also has a problem with scripts that feature an empowered women getting killed or raped. Yes, why does Hollywood do that? Michelle has the answer:

The appeal of this franchise: “We’re antiheroes being heroes, you know? It’s kind of Robin Hood-esque … But also I think it has a lot to do with the multicultural cast. People in this country – or in Spain, in Africa, in Asia – they can buy a ticket and see somebody who looks like them, and someone who isn’t necessarily a stereotype but an individual, a character who’s kind of blue-collar but also in this heroic position. It’s still pretty rare to have characters like that you can identify with. And after all this time, it’s crossing generations. I have six-year-kids running up to me and talking about Letty, which is really cool.”

On early career advice people gave her: “Well, I don’t know how well-intentioned it was! But you know, here’s the thing – I have such a strong sense of self, there are certain lines I just won’t cross. I’m really picky about the parts I choose. I can’t be the slut. I cannot be just the girlfriend. I can’t be the girl who gets empowered because she’s been raped. I can’t be the girl who gets empowered and then dies. So I just said to myself, look, you’re going to just have to create your own archetype, doesn’t matter if you go broke doing it. And I almost did go broke, twice! But people finally got it: OK, Michelle is not malleable, you’re not going to influence her by shining fame and money at her, and they stopped offering me that sort of stuff. But you know, it’s a Catch-22. It’s helped me and it’s screwed me. I’ve stuck to my guns and I’m proud.”

The movie cliché of the empowered women who dies: “I remember this script that came over my desk and it’s – I’m not even going to name it, it’ll just get me in more trouble – but I was reading it and at first I wanted to say no, because she’s Latina and she’s a drug dealer, and that’s like the only time you see Latin-Americans in Hollywood pictures. But I kept reading and I thought, well, some of it is based on truth, and she’s kind of an interesting person. And then I turn the page and they’ve stuck in this rape scene. Which didn’t even happen in real life, they just stuck it in there, this made-up thing and I thought, why? Why it is necessary to take her down like that? I mean, like Million Dollar Baby – why’s she got to die at the end, man? I mean, I get the tear-jerking, but would you do that to a male character? … I mean like 80% of the writers out there are men, and of course you’re going to write what you know. But it’s our fault as women for not penetrating that market, you know? I can’t complain about the scripts that are out there until I start writing some myself.”

[From NJ.com]

Michelle also talks about how everything came together for her after first Resident Evil movie. That’s the first time I noticed her and knew she possessed a fierceness seldom seen in Hollywood movies. She speaks the truth on how most script writers are men, and their narratives reflect their bias. Not every guy writes that way (obviously), but that’s the general trend.

MRod’s been making the press rounds. She talked to Entertainment Weekly about her sense of loss over Paul Walker’s death. They were friends and co-workers for 14 years, and she was so used to his regular presence that “I went pretty crazy. A lot of the stuff I did last year I would never do had I been in my right mind.” I believe she’s referring to the bizarre Zac Efron fling and the Cara Delevingne mess. There’s also a gross story about how obsessed she is with caviar. Us Weekly says Michelle regularly drops $700 in a single sitting because she loves the stuff so much. What a waste of money.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet & WENN