Michelle Rodriguez Once Considered Being Sexy in Films After Being Made Fun of for Tough Girl Roles
Actor Michelle Rodriguez is often seen playing strong characters in action films. But after being made fun of for her choice in roles, Rodriguez started to reconsider the types of characters she played.
How Michelle Rodriguez felt being typecast in the tough girl role
Rodriguez has made a successful career out of playing tough women characters. Her roles in films like Fast and the Furious frequently showcase her as characters that are as formidable as they are physical. But her consistency in playing these types of characters have led some to question if she’s been typecast in movies. And if she has, how does she feel about it? In a 2010 interview with The Playlist, Rodriguez opened up on the matter.
“Oh baby, I was typecast the minute I did a film called, Girlfight years ago. That has nothing to do with anything, it just to do with… you allow yourself to be typecast,” she said.
Rodriguez would go on to quip that if being typecast bothered her, she’d simply break the pattern by doing an indie drama. But she was perfectly satisfied doing the roles that she did.
“But at the end of the day I’m not in it for the acting. If I were in it for the acting then I would be worried about people not giving me the opportunity to express my vast array of emotions on the screen,” she continued. “I could give two s****. I only wanna be someone [that] I respect or someone that I consider interesting or fun.”
Michelle Rodriguez once considered playing sexier characters after being made fun of for tough girl roles
For Rodriguez, playing these strong characters wasn’t just primarily for her. She wanted to give others something to look up to. But after a while, the Avatar star began toying with the idea of playing other roles. When a friend jokingly called her out for being a “prude” in front of the camera, the actor began to second-guess her film choices.
“She was making fun of me,” Rodriguez once said about her friend according to Contact Music. “I was focused on being kind of like, an example for Latinas; I didn’t want them to be thinking that sexy is the only way to be powerful.”
But as she was bound to get older, Rodriguez started to think it was time to pursue sexier roles.
“But, y’know man, I’m gonna wrinkle up and lose it one day, and she reminded me of it, so I was like, ‘I might as well put it to some use and go do the sexy thing for a while,'” she added. “Why not?”
Apart from sexier roles, Rodriguez has also considered stepping into the world of comedy.
“I’ve been holding a gun for so long that I’m pretty much considered a butch b****. I’m 32 now and that clock is tickin’. I don’t want to be sour milk and watch my whole life pass away without trying something new,” she once said in an interview with Collider.
Michelle Rodriguez was hesitant about her dramatic role in ‘Widows’
In 2018, Rodriguez found herself starring alongside Widows directed by Steve McQueen. It was a more dramatic role than Rodriguez was accustomed to, dealing with themes she was far too familiar with in her real life. At first, Rodriguez rejected McQueen’s film.
“It was my ego, basically,” Rodriguez said in a 2018 Vanity Fair interview. “My idea of strength is a demonstrative exaggeration of male qualities: assertive, independent, always making the right decisions, never letting anybody swindle you. I didn’t see the strength in these women. I was like, ‘Why would I want to play a weak b****? Why would I want to play the reality of poverty in the ghetto?’ I grew up like that.”
But after conversing with the filmmaker, Rodriguez was convinced to participate in the project. It helped that Rodriguez was just turning 40 at the time. With that age came a bit of perspective.
“I had this big self-reflective moment,” she remembered. “I looked at myself, and I saw this surface layer, Papier-mâché creature with no dimension, and I said, ‘I need to do this movie.'”
