BANKING ON SUCCESS
ELIZABETH BANKS HAS A KNACK FOR PORTRAYING women who are easy to underestimate, from the bombshell right-wing media personality on 30 Rock to the Hunger Games’ foppish Effie Trinket. The same can be said for Banks herself. The actor—who will soon play a conservative feminist rival to Cate Blanchett’s Phyllis Schlafly in next year’s FX biopic miniseries Mrs. America—has become a prolific producer. Her company, Brownstone Productions, is behind the Pitch Perfect movie franchise as well as the Hulu series Shrill, starring Aidy Bryant. In 2015, Banks added another position to her résumé: directing Pitch Perfect 2, which became one of the highest-grossing female-directed films, earning $287 million globally. Now she’s doing all three jobs plus one more—cowriting—in the latest Charlie’s Angels, in theaters this month.
Growing up, I watched reruns of the TV show, and my sisters and I idolized the idea of Charlie’s Angels: These women went to the
