Kate Beckinsale Landed Pearl Harbour Role Because She “Wasn’t Attractive”

Another day, another shining example of the?utter crap women in the public eye are forced to put up with. Actress Kate Beckinsale is undoubtedly talented and beautiful, and thus a perfect candidate for a leading role – but these qualities apparently weren’t what made director Micheal Bay cast her as the star of 2001’s Pearl Harbour.?

The film was her blockbuster breakthrough in Hollywood, but she revealed she didn’t meet Bay’s “exacting standards” of female beauty, and he wasn’t afraid to tell the whole world this fact.

?I don’t think I fit the type of actress Michael Bay had met before,? Beckinsale recalls of the Transformers?filmmaker in a new interview on The Graham Norton Show. ?I think he was baffled by me because my boobs weren’t bigger than my head and I wasn’t blonde.?

?I’d just had my daughter and had lost weight,? Beckinsale explained, ?but was told that if I got the part, I’d have to work out. And I just didn’t understand why a 1940s nurse (the role she plays in the film) would do that.? We don’t understand either.

The director sang the praises of both male co-stars in the movie – Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett – but neglected to say much about Beckinsale, other than the fact that he cast her for the looks she didn’t have, at least in his eyes.

?When we were promoting the film, Michael was asked why he had chosen Ben [Affleck] and Josh [Hartnett], and he said, ‘I have worked with Ben before, and I love him, and Josh is so manly and a wonderful actor,’? Beckinsale said. ?Then when he was asked about me, he’d say, ?Kate wasn’t so attractive that she would alienate the female audience.??

?He kept saying it everywhere we went, how I was basically unattractive, and we went to a lot of places,? she added. The part was Beckinsale’s second film role.

?I didn’t want someone who was too beautiful. Women feel disturbed when they see someone’s too pretty,??Bay, said. ?I’m not saying Kate’s not pretty. .[she] is very funny, could hang with the guys. She’s not so neurotic about everything, like some actresses.?

Why is it some “creatives”?think they have free reins to say such comments about the women that work with them?

As if insulting the star of his own movie was not enough, Bay then brought up another phenomenally talented British actress and future Oscar winner?into the mix.

?When you look at Titanic, Kate Winslet is pretty, but not overwhelmingly beautiful,??Bay explained. ?That makes it work better for women.?

Bay isn’t exactly known for his charming nature; he fired Megan Fox after she spoke of his dictating tendencies on set.”He’s like Napoleon, and he wants to create this insane, infamous mad-man reputation,? Fox told the magazine. ?He wants to be like Hitler on his sets, and he is. So he’s a nightmare to work for.”

His reputation sounds to mirror that of Joy director David O’Russell; Amy Adams said he too, was a “nightmare to for” and that she’d never work on his films again after his treatment of her.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again, Hollywood needs more female directors, and fast.

Via The Daily Mail