Donna Langley Quotes Viola Davis While Discussing Her Status as One of Hollywood’s Most Powerful Execs: ‘I Hope My Ceiling Is Somebody Else’s Floor’
The first time Donna Langley came to the Cannes Film Festival she was a junior executive working on 1999’s “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.”
“I had just been promoted and I was fortunate enough to get picked to come on this trip to be part of the support team, and it was great! It was very different to this experience, I will say,” Langley said, eliciting a laugh from the well-heeled crowd at the Kering Women in Motion dinner, held at the Place de la Castre high above the Croisette. “[But] we had the time of our lives. We were just in so much awe to be in the cinema capital of the world.”
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Indeed, the chairman of NBC Universal Studio Group no longer needs to share an apartment with four other young women — especially not one situated behind the fancy hotels. After all — and as Cannes president Iris Knobloch noted while presenting Langley with the Women in Motion Award — the studio head is not only “one of the most powerful women in Hollywood, but one of the most powerful people, regardless of gender.”
Langley explained that thinking about her first experience in Cannes reminded her about the power of saying “Yes.”
“Somebody said, ‘Yeah, you can take that trip. You worked hard on this film. You deserve it,'” she said. “One of the things that struck me is that, in roles like mine and many of you in the room, we have power and opportunity to say ‘Yes.’ That is a great privilege to say yes to things. It’s much easier to say ‘No.’ And the yeses, don’t come very often, but when they do come they are so powerful.”
That’s why she’s made it her mission to “widen the aperture” of the film business with the projects and people she chooses to say “yes” to, and she encouraged other decision-makers to consider the ways that inclusion and representation can be good for the bottom line. Langley closed her remarks by quoting from Viola Davis’ rousing speech at the 2022 ceremony.
“She said, ‘I hope my ceiling is somebody else’s floor,’ and I really want to reiterate that,” Langley said. “Let’s just keep doing the work. It’s never-ending.”
Langley was the first executive to be awarded the Kering Women in Motion prize, which salutes inspirational figures and emerging female talent who’ve expanded opportunities for women in the entertainment industry. Past recipients include Salma Hayek-Pinault, Jane Fonda, Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon, Isabelle Huppert, Patty Jenkins, Gong Li, Davis and Michelle Yeoh, the 2023 honoree.
“It was very humbling,” Yeoh told Variety on the black carpet. “So, this year, when they named Donna, it was like, ‘Finally!’ because she does make a lot of important changes. She walks the talk. She’s not just a figurehead. She’s so goddamn gorgeous and smart, and we want to celebrate more women like that.”
The “Wicked” star doubled down on the sentiment during the ceremony, appearing in a clip reel with a handful of other A-listers (Emily Blunt, Ariana Grande, Tom Cruise, Cynthia Erivo and Diane von Furstenberg) who saluted Langley’s efforts. “That was really bonkers. I paid them all to say those things,” Langley quipped in response.
The guest list for the black-tie dinner included Julianne Moore, Uma Thurman, Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert and Justine Triet, who returned to Cannes after winning last year’s Palme d’Or for “Anatomy of a Fall.” This year’s jury president “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig and jurors Lily Gladstone, Eva Green, Omar Sy, Nadine Labaki and Juan Antonio Bayona were in attendance too, as was Jacques Audiard and his “Emilia Pérez” stars Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón and Édgar Ramírez; “The Apprentice” leads Sebastian Stan and Maria Bakalova; “The Shroud” star Diane Kruger and filmmaker David Cronenberg; Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, Julie Gayet, Anaïs Demoustier, Rossy De Palma, Pierre Niney and Romain Gavras.
As Women in Motion approaches its 10th anniversary, Hayek-Pinault reflected on the progress the initiative has made thus far.
“The conversation has gotten so much louder,” she said, noting that pay inequality is the challenge that’s most important to tackle right now. “This is [an issue] across the board — like many other issues for women in any kind of job — but because we [as actresses] have microphones, we should absolutely shout our discontent at any point that we can. it’s getting better. Not quite there yet, but it’s getting better.”
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