Me Before You's Thea Sharrock On The Lack Of Female Directors: "It Can Only Get Better"

    "We're delighted we've been able to buck the trend," she said at a screening of the romance movie on Thursday night.

    Kimberley Dadds
    by Kimberley Dadds

    BuzzFeed Staff, UK

    Earlier this month it was revealed that an official investigation has been launched into the lack of female directors in the film industry, due to them still being startlingly outnumbered in Hollywood.

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    It comes roughly a year after the American Civil Liberties Union sent letters to the federal government detailing “blatant and rampant discrimination” in the industry.

    But one of the big movies of 2016, Me Before You, not only has a female director, but a female screenwriter and female producers, as well as some strong female leads fronting it.

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    Thea Sharrock directs the romance movie alongside Jojo Moyes, who wrote the novel that it's based on and works as the screenwriter. Karen Rosenfelt and Alison Owen are the producers, while Sue Baden-Powell is the executive producer.

    There is a very strong male cast, including Sam Claflin, Charles Dance, and Matthew Lewis, but it also includes a stellar female lineup, including Game of Thrones' Emilia Clarke, Doctor Who's Jenna Coleman, and acting veteran Janet McTeer, as well as a cameo from Joanna Lumley.

    And on Thursday night Sharrock decided to address the situation as she introduced the movie at a multimedia screening in London. She told the crowd: "We're delighted we've been able to buck the trend."

    Kim Dadds @KimberleyDadds

    "We're delighted we've been able to buck the trend." #MeBeforeYou's Thea Sharrock on the lack of female directors

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    As she stood next to Moyes and Clarke, she said she hopes it helps "turn the dial in the right direction":

    We're delighted we've been able to buck the trend. ... It can only get better and if our little movie in some way changes that and turns the dial in the right direction then we're very, very pleased.

    Additionally, as Moyes revealed to BuzzFeed, the women-heavy crew was actually a "total accident" and it hadn't been an intentional move.

    Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images

    On the morning following the screening, Moyes told BuzzFeed: "[It was a] total accident. Three kickass women producers, Thea, and me... I mean I feel like we're kind of making up some invisible tally, you know, we're upping the numbers in our own small way."

    She added: "I've got nothing to judge that by because this is my first film production but what I will say is that I felt the experience on set was very positive. Well, I know the crew who I spoke to – you know, lots of grizzled old hands that have been on every film you can imagine – said that it was a particularly happy set. So I don't know if that's because we were women or just because of Thea. I don't know, because I think those sorts of things come from the head down."