Mark Davis/Getty ImagesAfter months of public complaint over the upcoming all-female Ghostbusters remake, Kristen Wiig is finally speaking her peace.
The 42-year-old Academy Award nominee is set to play Erin Gilbert in the 2016 redux alongside A-list female comedians like Melissa McCarthy and SNL's Kate McKinnon as well as the 1984 Ghostbusters alum Sigourney Weaver. The casting choices have become the public focal point of the film venture, inciting outrage amongst many critics engulfing the Twittersphere.
Director Paul Feig has responded numerous times to the backlash and now Wiig is taking a moment to address the noise from her point-of-view, as first told to the Los Angeles Times.
"The fact there was so much controversy because we were women was surprising to me," she told the Los Angeles Times. "Some people said some really not nice things about the fact that there were women. It didn't make me mad, it just really bummed me out. We're really honoring those movies."
In addition to ill-placed words regarding her new project, the Nasty Baby actress is also taking issue with the tired questions surrounding women in comedy overall. With a high rollout of female-driven comedic films since Wiig's Bridesmaids in 2011, it's become nearly ritual to ask women in the genre why they think they've seen such success.
Wiig isn't too fond of answering the question anymore.
"I think the fact that people keep asking it implies that it's something we need to explain or defend," she pointed out. "If [people] would watch movies or look at comedy and see how many talented, funny women are out there and have been since the beginning of time, people would stop asking that."
Instead, Wiig will admit that while there are far more women doing comedy in Hollywood films, the numbers are not high enough.
"The other side of it is we're still not there as far as opportunities," she said. "But, people are doing the work."