Actress Zoe Kazan is convinced there were better female-led movies 20 years ago.
The 33-year-old star, who is known for her turns in indie films including Ruby Sparks and What If, criticized the rise of "explosions and guns" and the decline of "adult people talking" in movies in an interview with London's Evening Standard.
"Studios used to finance movies in the $10 million to $15 million range and they would make films that were about adult people talking, not about explosions and guns," Zoe told the publication.
"I'm hesitant to say that things are better (for female actresses) now. They're better than they were five years ago but they're not better than they were 20 years ago," she insisted.
However, she cited Amy Adams' critically acclaimed sci-fi epic Arrival as an example of the type of movie studios should make more of.
"It felt like a throwback to the time when you had Jodie Foster in Contact and Julia Roberts in The Pelican Brief," she said referencing the '90s box office hits. "You just had movies being told on a large cinematic scale that were about people's internal life."
Zoe has grown up steeped in Hollywood history as her grandfather is Elia Kazan - the director of Marlon Brando classics A Streetcar Named Desire and On The Waterfront.
In Zoe's new movie The Big Sick, she plays Emily V. Gordon, who meets a Pakistani stand-up comedian, played by Kumail Nanjiani, but falls into a coma after they break up. It has been heralded by many critics as a return to the romantic comedies rarely seen in Hollywood.
"If I was asked to list my favorite romantic comedies, most of mine would be more than a decade old," agreed Zoe.
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