Zoe Kravitz is one of Elle Magazine’s Women in Hollywood covers and honorees. I’m not exactly sure why, it’s not like she had an amazing professional year – yes, she was in The Batman, and she has P-ssy Island coming out next year, but that’s about it. Culturally, it was actually a bad year for her. She attended the Oscars and she devoted a few Instagram posts to making catty comments about Will Smith, and the backlash on social media was immediate and wall-to-wall. Black Twitter had all of the receipts. After that, it took her four months to open her mouth in public again, and when she did, she tried to act like she was canceled and people should be able to have conversations, blah, etc. Nowadays, Zoe seems to want to turn the page from all of that. Some highlights from her Elle interview:

Writing & directing ‘P-ssy Island’: “The story has changed many times. I started writing it before Harvey Weinstein was exposed, so the world was different. It came from a very different place, and it did start very much like an angry feminist script. Then, as the world changed and the conversation evolved, I got to sit back and watch what was going on.”

On the role that changed everything: “Bonnie from Big Little Lies and then Selina Kyle from The Batman—those had the biggest impact. They changed what I had the opportunity to do. When Jean-Marc Vallée gave me that job [on Big Little Lies], I was working with some of the best actors of our time all of a sudden. I had access to a different audience and was able to learn from all of those amazing women.”

Her mentor: “Reese Witherspoon and I became very, very close after Big Little Lies. She’s such a strong businesswoman and is really driven to inspire and educate other women in the industry to take up more space. She’s someone who I admire and who I always call when I have a question or something I want to make or produce, or a book I want to adapt.”

What’s changed in Hollywood post-#MeToo: “We became trendy. It’s cool in a way. When I was trying to find a director of photography for my movie and I wanted a woman, I couldn’t find one. All of the DPs who are female are booked, because that’s cool now or because people are paying more attention. If people are afraid to say they didn’t like a piece of art because it was made by a women, it feels to me that we aren’t allowing it to truly affect us. Art isn’t about liking. It’s about emotion, debate. Art is about conversation.”

Her best advice: “Always challenge what people say you can and can’t do, and what parts are written for you. I used to be told I couldn’t have a role because they wanted a white girl. Now we’re in this place where you can only play a role if you are that identity, which I think is very complicated. Can a person who can see play a blind person? I don’t know the answer. It’s all very blurry. There’s not necessarily a right side and a wrong side. It’s almost like it was so bad for so long that now we have to sit in this uncomfortable place that also doesn’t make a lot of sense, trying to even things out. It’s just like, Who’s in charge and where do we draw the line? I don’t know the answer to that.”

On being a role model: “I don’t know if I could be considered a role model, but I think allowing yourself to be imperfect is probably the best thing you can do for yourself right now. In this time of social media where people constantly present perfection, that’s really important, so I try to allow myself to be as human as possible. We live in this time where people are triggered and people are sensitive. But then people are saying horrible, horrible things to each other on the internet. I don’t understand. It’s all about power.”

On social media: “Social media is a big experiment that we’re all participating in, and to pretend like we understand it is a joke. I have had my ups and downs with it. I’m sure it’s helped my career in some ways, but I also think it’s hurt it…. People confuse social media with reality. It’s not real. What I mean by that is that I think people feel that if they feel something and they don’t express it on social media, then it doesn’t count. If you care about something and you don’t talk about it on social media, then you don’t care about it. If you write about one thing but not another thing, you care about one more than the other. None of that’s real. Or true.”

[From Elle]

I’m sorry, what? “It’s almost like it was so bad for so long that now we have to sit in this uncomfortable place that also doesn’t make a lot of sense, trying to even things out…” She’s both-sides-ing representation? She thinks it’s an uncomfortable place that “doesn’t make a lot of sense” when people are like “only trans people should play trans characters” or “Asian actors should play Asian characters.” I also think it’s weird that she sees Big Little Lies as some kind of huge moment for her career, especially since a lot of people criticized how poorly written Bonnie was. It was also written for a white actress, and they just popped Zoe into the role. Color-blind casting, only for the worst role of the ensemble.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, cover courtesy of Elle.