Elizabeth Banks apologises to Steven Spielberg
The 43-year-old actress made the remark when she was accepting the Women in Film's Excellence award on Tuesday.
It was an embarrassing moment for Elizabeth Banks, after she slammed director Steven Spielberg for not featuring female leads in his movies. Fans called her out and slammed her back, citing the iconic film The Colour Purple, where a female lead has been portrayed.
The 43-year-old actress made the remark when she was accepting the Women in Film’s Excellence award on Tuesday. She continued to speak, even after someone from the crowd called out her mistake, and the actress has now published an apology for it. Elizabeth put out a statement on Instagram, saying, “I messed up. When referring to Steven Spielberg at the Women in Film awards, I framed my comments about his films inaccurately. I want to be clear from the start that I take full responsibility for what I said and I’m sorry. When I made the comments, I was thinking of recent films Steven directed, it was not my intention to dismiss the import of the iconic The Color Purple. I made things worse by giving the impression that I was dismissing Shari Belafonte when she attempted to correct me,” she added. “I spoke with Shari backstage and she was kind enough to forgive me. Those who have the privilege and honour of directing and producing films should be held to account for our mistakes, whether it’s about diversity or inaccurate statements. I’m very sorry.”