No Longer Unbelievable: Connie Nielsen Says Female Action Stars Are No Longer “Met With Disbelief”
Connie Nielsen is looking back at how Hollywood has changed when it comes to women in action movies. While promoting her new film Nobody 2, the actress shared her thoughts on how female action stars are now finally taken seriously and action movies in general.
Nielsen says that from her perspective, action movies started out as a form of addressing male insecurity: “I think action movies started out really as this way of creating this superhuman, like this “super man.” It was very unconscious in the beginning about the fact that it was addressing male insecurity, by inventing this super ego that can do everything. Now I think there’s this awareness about where it comes from, and that awareness is interesting, it’s interesting for women to be part of it too. “
A female action star [is no longer] met with disbelief… no matter how successful the movies were, women could not be taken seriously in them, and that’s no longer the case, Nielsen said.
For a long time, names like Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2, Sigourney Weaver in Aliens, Milla Jovovich in Resident Evil, and Kate Beckinsale in Underworld proved that women could lead big action hits. Still, there was always doubt in Hollywood. Now, Nielsen says that mindset has shifted, and for the better.
Connie Nielsen reflects on the depiction of female action stars in Hollywood
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) August 17, 2025
“A female action star [is no longer] met with disbelief… no matter how successful the movies were, women could not be taken seriously in them, and that’s no longer the case.” pic.twitter.com/DCmYq9lIJE
Nielsen herself has had a long career in both drama and action. She first broke through as Lucilla in Gladiator in 2000, a role she returned to in this year’s Gladiator II. She also plays Queen Hippolyta in the DC superhero films. Over the years she has appeared in projects like Soldier (1998), Mission to Mars (2000), One Hour Photo (2002), The Hunted (2003), The Ice Harvest (2005), 3 Days to Kill (2014), Inheritance (2020) and Nobody (2021).
Her latest project, Nobody 2, brings back Bob Odenkirk as Hutch Mansell. The movie has been met with mostly positive reactions from critics. Rotten Tomatoes shows 78 percent of reviews leaning positive from 126 critics. The site’s summary says, While frumpy action-hero Hutch Mansell tries to enjoy a nice vacation, Bob Odenkirk works overtime to make Nobody 2 a diverting sequel that measures up admirably to the original.
Metacritic is less generous, giving the sequel a score of 59 out of 100 based on 30 reviews, which means mixed or average reactions overall.
Even with the mixed reviews, Nielsen believes that the success of movies like this proves her point. Female stars can stand side by side with their male counterparts in action films, and audiences are no longer questioning if they belong there.
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