Sharon Horgan: It’s ‘Annoying It Took a Sexual Assault Apocalypse’ for Hollywood to Invest in Women
Irish actor/writer/director Sharon Horgan has made a career out of portraying and sketching women who are, as she puts it, “a bit messy.” On the Amazon-hosted British sitcom “Catastrophe,” which she co-created with co-star Robert Delaney, she plays a school teacher who finds herself pregnant after a fling. She created the HBO comedy series “Divorce,” starring Sarah Jessica Parker, and she next writes and directs on the Amazon anthology series “Modern Love,” based on the New York Times column.
In a recent interview with The Independent, Horgan talked about her busy career, which includes the British comedy “This Way Up,” currently streaming on Hulu, about a young woman who tries to rebuild her life after a nervous breakdown.
Horgan said that 2019 is a great time for “women of a certain age carrying films and TV series” — in front of the camera, that is.
“Everyone’s on their best behavior, but as soon as the spotlight is taken off it, things go back. It’s about perseverance now, not resting on your laurels and continuing to be an asshole about it because it’s so easy for the lazy lists to come back around,” she said.
“Female stories sell now and really it does come down to that, economics, which is incredibly positive. It’s just fucking annoying that it took a sexual assault apocalypse to create that change,” she added, referring, of course, to the rippling shockwaves of the #MeToo movement that began with Harvey Weinstein’s ousting from Hollywood in fall 2017.
Like recent “Fleabag” triple Emmy-winner Phoebe Waller-Bridge, another U.K. import, Horgan also inked a deal with Amazon. “I just fucking love female creators making that kind of money,” Horgan said, referencing Waller-Bridge’s epic $20 million pact with the streaming giant. “Apart from Shonda Rhimes, it’s the guys that make the big Marvel movies who are associated with that kind of money, so yeah, fair play to her.”
Horgan previously met Waller-Bridge circa the latter’s 2016 British slacker comedy series “Crashing,” adding that she was absolutely “gutted” that her production company Merman “came in too late” to team up with Waller-Bridge who, by then, was poised to take off.
“Modern Love” premieres October 18 on Amazon.
