There was no shortage of girl power Monday night at the Los Angeles premiere of Netflix’s “Girlboss” at the Arclight Cinemas in Hollywood. Stars such as creator Kay Cannon, executive producers Charlize Theron and Sophia Amoruso as well as star Britt Robertson all graced the pink carpet in anticipation of the series’ debut.
Based on Amoruso’s business memoir of the same name, the series is a loose, comedic interpretation of her early-’20s, which chronicles her bohemian lifestyle in San Francisco prior to launching her multi-million dollar online retailer Nasty Gal. Once hailed as the “Cinderella of tech” by The New York Times, Amoruso’s story absolutely qualifies as “rags to riches”: she was dumpster diving and on the brink of eviction before she founded Nasty Gal. In 2016 Nasty Gal filed for bankruptcy, and was recently purchased by BooHoo group. According to Cannon, it’s Amoruso’s resilience to succeed that ultimately drew her to the story.
“Society has this deeply rooted love of seeing women fail,” said Cannon. “I wanted to do this story because I wanted to show that you can fail and be OK, and to show women — especially young women — that it’s okay to suck as long as you pick yourself up and start again.”
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Cannon added, “I love that she’s flawed and kind of an a—hole, because you know she is going to grow.”
Amoruso’s story, though unique, is universal in that one must fail in order to succeed, as noted by Theron. The South African actress and producer was inspired to buy the rights to the book after she read it on a plane ride.
“We sold it pretty fast and made it pretty fast, because I feel like it’s a story that relates to a lot of people — especially women,” Theron stated. “I wish I had something like this to read when I was 19 years old, and someone to tell me that I can do anything.”
Theron also criticized the double-standard of failure between men and women, and how it is seen as a “rite of passage” for men, while women need to work twice as hard in order to be taken seriously.
“I think men get to fail, and it’s more forgiving in our society,” she went on to say. “It’s something, as women, that is not celebrated as much. But things are slowly changing in our society and I hope ‘Girlboss’ can be a part of that change.”
“Girlboss” premieres on Netflix worldwide April 21.
