Annabel Wallis said she would love to lead her own action film. The data says the audience is ready. So why is Hollywood still treating female action leads as an exception rather than a default?
During the press tour for her new action film Mutiny, Annabelle Wallis was asked by Collider whether she'd ever want to lead her own action movie. She lit up at the idea — and then named the thing standing in the way. "More and more we have to fight for our space in film, as women, and tell stories about women that resonate with other women," she said, describing a moment she sees as shifting: "This is an evolving time for women, where we are so empowered… there are new voices, and new stories to be told."
@inverse @AnnabelleWallis is ready to star in her own action film! The actress co-leads #Mutiny with JasonStathem, and we think she is perfect pick to star in her own apocalyptic survival film 👀 Video: Inverse / #AnnabelleWallis
♬ original sound - Inverse - Inverse
She's right. And if there's one genre where that fight is hardest, one corner of cinema still built almost entirely around men, it's the one she was there to promote: action.
Because here's the truth about action films. Women are in them constantly — as the love interest, the hostage, the femme fatale, the one who dies to motivate the hero. What women rarely get to do is carry one. To be the name above the title, the fist the whole film is built around, the franchise anchor. And when they do, it's treated as an event, an exception, a risk — never a default. Wallis, promoting an action film she stars in but doesn't lead, was describing the exact ceiling she's standing under.
According to a survey reported by Variety, Fandango polled more than 3,000 women aged 18 to 52 and found that action topped the list of preferred genres — with fewer than one in ten women selecting romance or romantic comedies as their favourite. The data goes further: women are the primary decision-makers when choosing films for friends and family 85% of the time, and accounted for 56% of ticket purchases for Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, a male-led action adventure. Author Alicia Malone, writing on women in film, summarised it simply: "Contrary to the age-old Hollywood belief, women are not just looking for romance at the cinema." Hollywood has been profiting from a female action audience while refusing to build films around them.
The argument that women cannot carry action films has always been a strange one, because action is the one genre where dialogue matters least. The genre lives in its kinetic sequences — the fight choreography, the chase, the physical reckoning. It does not require the kind of sustained dramatic monologue that might prompt lazy questions about female emotional range. It requires physicality, commitment, and screen presence. Women have all three. The question was never whether they could deliver. The question is why Hollywood decided the answer was no.
There have been some great examples of female action leads, but they are treated as a minority. Uma Thurman's performance in Kill Bill remains one of the most complete female action lead turns in cinema history — physically demanding, emotionally complex, and built around a woman's rage rather than a man's motivation. Uma Thurman portrays a former elite assassin who was betrayed and shot on her wedding day. After waking up from a four-year-long coma, she sets out on a journey of getting her vengeance. More examples of women in action are Angelina Jolie, one of the most famous female action stars of our generation; she really did raise us. We personally imagined ourselves with a slickback braid and a gun at the age of 10. Honorable mentions go to Charlize Theron, Anya Taylor-Joy in the Mad Max Universe, and Ana de Armas.
Isn’t it a little bit weird that we can recall all the female leads from our minds? Just take a look at the ‘Best Female Lead Action Movies’ on IMDb, and it is a circulation of the same names. The point isn't "there are no women action stars", it's that each one is an exception you can name, which is the whole problem. Men get to be forgettable action leads on repeat; women have to be iconic, and even then rarely get the franchise follow-through.
We love this genre, women love this genre, and the "new stories to be told" Wallis describes should include women throwing the punches, not just standing behind them. We want more female-led action films — give us Florence Pugh, Annabel Wallis, and Danai Gurira. Because female rage on screen is not a niche interest or a political statement. It is genuinely thrilling cinema, and the longer Hollywood pretends otherwise, the more it is leaving on the table — creatively and commercially.
Daria Ershova
