Gloria Steinem and Julie Taymor on activism, optimism, and film
Gloria Steinem is 86 now, and she’s at that point in her life where—to the general public at least—she’s more of an icon than an actual human being. That’s fair, given the life she’s lived and the change she’s enacted, but it can also make for some complicated conversations when you’re thinking about adapting said life into a movie.
Fortunately Steinem was on board when Julie Taymor asked to adapt Steinem’s 2015 memoir, My Life On The Road, into a movie. That project initially began production around election night 2016, with Taymor filming Steinem, Madeleine Albright and 40 other female ambassadors watching the election results they had hoped would be positive, but ultimately took a different turn following that night’s result.
The Glorias is an interesting look at four segments of Steinem’s life, and with four different actors playing Steinem during those periods. Before the film hits Amazon Prime Video and VOD this week, The A.V. Club sat down with Taymor and Steinem to talk about how the activist gained the distance from her own story to accept the process, and how Taymor used the reaction to the 2016 election to shape the film.