Women are the story, Jennifer Lopez says in ELLE’s annual celebration of Women in Hollywood. “We have to be able to stand in our own power and say, ‘We’re not just on the periphery.’” As Fantasia Barrino Taylor puts it, we must tell ourselves: “I am the award. I am the trophy.”
Lopez, Barrino Taylor, and the seven other honorees here are changing the face of the film industry—literally, by becoming the stars that they desperately wanted to see onscreen. “That’s what I signed up for as an actor—to be a reflection of the world that I actually live in, to represent the person who doesn’t feel she has a voice and who isn’t seen,” says Danielle Brooks. “Even to represent myself.”
Representation has been a through line for many of this year’s Women in Hollywood honorees, from Eva Longoria, who talks about why she has made it a personal mission to tell complex Latin stories onscreen: “Hollywood gets to decide what heroes look like, and they never look like us,” to Lily Gladstone, who could become the first Native person nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her star turn in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon: “Seeing yourself represented gives you a sense of your place in the world,” she says.
Now that they’ve proven what is possible, they are pushing the limits even further. By writing new futures for themselves and women like them: “What I continue to wish for my career, and women’s careers and people of color’s careers, is that we don’t have to exist inside of these boxes or these lanes,” says America Ferrera, who will soon direct her first feature film. And by using their platforms to uplift others, like Taraji P. Henson, who says: “I’m grateful that acting led me to a larger life purpose.”
Greta Lee, the breakout star of Past Lives, says she’ll work until age 100 if she can in order to make up for lost time—“all those years of sitting and just watching people who had access to all the opportunities you didn’t,” she says. While Jodie Foster, after five decades in the industry, is relishing the feeling of letting go and watching others soar: At a certain point, “it’s someone else’s time,” she says. “You might as well do more of the things you love, less of the things you hate, and stop beating yourself up for something you can’t control.”
Jennifer Lopez
Jodie Foster
Taraji P. Henson
America Ferrera
Danielle Brooks
Greta Lee
Fantasia Barrino Taylor
Lily Gladstone
Eva Longoria
Editor’s Note: Our editors worked directly with SAG-AFTRA during its recent strike to make sure we could honor women in Hollywood while still adhering to union guidelines. Honorees were permitted to be photographed and speak about their careers generally; any specific acting projects they discuss here were either not among those subject to the strike or were added via follow-up interviews after the strike ended.