Film Screening

Cecilia Prince… Sasheer Zamata

Leslie Jones

Emma Stone

Debette Goldry… Kate McKinnon

Jennifer Aniston

Cecilia Prince: Hello everyone and welcome to tonight’s Hailey Center event, “Big parts, small actresses.” The state of gender equality and film. To my left, star of Ghost Busters, Leslie Jones.

Leslie Jones: Girl, I told you I wanted my credit to be the Olympics.

Cecilia Prince: [smiling] Going down the line, star of ‘La-la Land’, Emma Stone.

Emma Stone: Hi everyone. I’m stone.

Cecilia Prince: Next, we are so fortunate to be joined by a Hollywood legend, the star of over 300 feature films, and the first woman to ever dive into a swimming pool screen. The great Debette Goldry.

Debette Goldry: It’s honor to be where am I?

Cecilia Prince: And we are so pleased to have with us today, the star of the upcoming film “Office Christmas Party,” Jennifer Aniston.

Jennifer Aniston: It’s great to be here, and Debette, I have been dying to meet you.

Debette Goldry: And I have been slowly dying. In memoriam Oscars 2017, oh boy!

Cecilia Prince: Okay, now let me start with a question for all of you. What do you think is still holding women back?

Emma Stone: I think there are all these tiny little things. Like, you’ve got to change your hair to fit your type.

Jennifer Aniston: Yeah. And you have to act a certain way so that you don’t get labelled as a difficult.

Debette Goldry: Yeah. You gotta eat arsenic to make your skin pale.

Emma Stone: What?

Debette Goldry: I mean, Samuel Goldwyn had a rule that all of his starlets had to take arsenic tablets to make their skin glow. And then they discovered that it made us, um, I’m sorry, what is the word, psychotic. So, to calm us down, they’d send in the monkey with a tray of Opium, you know how it goes.

Jennifer Aniston: Um, I can’t– I san’t say that I actually know what you’re talking about. I mean, I know we had a monkey on F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and he was quite a handful.

Debette Goldry: Yeah, handful of opium, and now that is a friend.

Cecilia Prince: [smiling] Okay. Now, do all of you find that equal pay is still a battle that needs fighting?

Leslie Jones: Oh, yeah. Even in standup, people don’t want to talk about it but then you find out how much more men is getting paid, it’s crazy.

Debette Goldry: Well, of course we’re paid less than men. They’re men. They’re doing all the work. We’re just lying on a train track waiting to get run over.

Leslie Jones: Oh my god! So you literally were treated like an object?

Debette Goldry: Well, I mean, it made sense. Back in those days, actresses were actually part of the props budget. When I was in filming, I had to sit on a little table next to a piece of masking tape that said “Woman.” And then one of the union guys would pick me up, bring me over, show me the Alfred Hitchcock and say, “Sorry, this is all they have.”

Jennifer Aniston: Oh, my god!

Cecilia Prince: [smiling] Let’s pivot. What needs to change for women, not just in Hollywood but in the world at large?

Emma Stone: I think we’re in a unique position to draw attention to worthy causes. Whether it’s raising awareness or meeting with policymakers.

Debette Goldry: You know, the studio once sent me to the white house to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ for FDR. He asked me to tickle his pickle.

Jennifer Aniston: Um, what did you do?

Debette Goldry: Well, I tickled his pickle. He kept all the fake pickle in his wheelchair as a joke. Then I blew him.

Cecilia Prince: [smiling] That’s the end of that. Um, let’s talk about women behind the camera.

Jennifer Aniston: Oh, well, I’ve been in the director’s chair–

Debette Goldry: A woman director, wow! How could that possibly work? Oh, I see, your husband comes to set dressed up like a plant? Whispers the ideas. got it.

Jennifer Aniston: What? No. I direct the movie.

Debette Goldry: Okay, Jentlefer Panty-ston. Cuckoo. No more arsenic for her, please.

Emma Stone: I think just overall, the whole vibe is so much better when there are women in the room. Whether it’s on set or in the audition.

Debette Goldry: Oh, tell me about it. They used to make me do a whole screen test just for my toot.

Emma Stone: What part of your body is your toot?

Debette Goldry: I’ll give you two guesses and they’re both right.

Jennifer Aniston: Oh my god! Good lord! You see, women’s bodies are constantly under the microscope.

Emma Stone: There’s a whole industry built around shaming actresses for how they look.

Debette Goldry: Yeah, yeah. You know, back when I started, we didn’t have fancy stuff like botox. So, what they’d do is they’d make a little incision on your forehead, pour in pancake batter. On a hot day we’d start to smell like a breakfast. That’s why they call it “Breakfast head at Tiffany’s.”

Emma Stone: Um, it’s called “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

Debette Goldry: Whatever you say, little miss I pick my own boyfriends

Cecilia Prince: [smiling] Okay, that’s all the time we have.

Debette Goldry: Oh, boy, I know what that means. I got my ticklers. Where’s those pickles?