Jordana Brewster returns to the big screen in a big way this weekend with two films — F9: The Fast Saga, the latest installment of the blockbuster Fast & Furious franchise, and the indie The Integrity of Joseph Chambers. But it was her work in the latter film from writer-director Robert Machoian that had her colleagues dropping their jaws on set.
Machoian’s script casts Brewster opposite Clayne Crawford as a couple forced to lean on their survival skills due to the current economic crisis. There’s a scene that calls for Brewster’s character, Tess, to pull down her pants and expose her backside while making a point, though she admits that her colleagues had no expectation she would follow through. However, because she felt it was an important scene for her character, she went for it.
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“I’m going to totally fucking do this because what do I have to lose?” Brewster recalled during an interview with a new lifestyle website The Retaility. “Beforehand I went shopping for cute thongs. And I did it. … They were all like, ‘Jordana! What are you doing?!’ They had no idea it was coming.”
Brewster credits the impromptu moment to maturity and to arriving at an era free of the high-profile men’s magazines that seemed to dominate back in the day. “Ten years ago, I was so concerned about, ‘How does my stomach look? How does my butt look?’” she admits. “I call it the Maxim era and the FHM era of, ‘Yes, you have to be talented, but you also have to be a certain size and not too fat and not too skinny.’ There was so much pressure on actresses to look a certain way and that’s exhausting and such a waste of energy because instead of reading or focusing on your character, you’re focused on ‘How do I look right now and is it perfect enough?’ … I used to get notes, ‘They’re asking you to lose some weight,’ and I would carry that for years because how could you not?”
She says she notices the shift when she turns on the TV. “When I watch TV, I’m like, ‘Wow. It’s so refreshing that the women can wear stuff that’s not [revealing]. They’re not being treated as sex symbols unless that’s important to their character. That’s awesome and it’s reflecting life a little bit more. I think we’re going in the right direction.”
The comments from Brewster were published in an interview by Lindzi Scharf on her new lifestyle website, The Retaility, which offers “a peek inside the homes, hearts and minds of California creatives, entrepreneurs and anyone inspiring who is getting shit done against all odds.” The debut issue also features New York Times best-selling author Taylor Jenkins Reid, Legally Blonde screenwriter Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith, celebrity hairstylists Ted Gibson and Jason Backe, model turned clean beauty pioneer Josie Maran, musician Nikki Pennie, designer Lan Jaenicke and cubist painter Alexandra Nechita.
Upcoming content is said to feature Oscar-winning producer Jaime Ray Newman; designers Brian & Claude of Wolk Morais; hatmaker Janessa Leone; makeup artist Rachel Goodwin; C & the Moon founder-doula Carson Meyer; Quilt founder Ashley Sumner; jewelry designer Adina Reyter; and TV host Adrianna Costa. More from Brewster’s interview can be found here.
