Trudie Styler joins fight for more women’s films

“American Hustle” actress Jennifer Lawrence opened the floodgates with her critique about women’s pay gaps in Hollywood. Now, Trudie Styler, the executive producer behind “Miss You Already,” starring Drew Barrymore, is adding her voice.

Styler set up New York-based Maven Pictures with Celine Rattray almost five years ago to address the lack of roles for women.

“We have very few heads of studios who are women. There have been some notables such as [former Sony boss] Amy Pascal, but distribution is usually headed by men, people buying movies are men. What we’re talking about is a male-driven industry and male-driven stories,” Styler told On the Money.

Styler and Rattray say some of the biggest challenges they’ve faced as they’ve tried to get movies made have been from financiers who asked for female characters to be replaced by men.

If they had their way, we might have seen “Tim and Louis” instead of “Thelma and Louise,” and perhaps “Andy Hall,” instead of “Annie Hall.”

Styler, who is married to Sting, wants women to bring their projects to her company. Business partner Rattray says, “We actively say, “What projects have you longed to do and we’ll develop them with you.’ ”

Styler has been studying some deeply meaningful movies such as Vittorio De Sica’s “Miracle in Milan” as she undertakes her first directorial project, “Freak Show” starring Bette Midler; she confesses, however, that her favorite movie is Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

“I’m a sentimental old fool,” she adds.