'MYConfidence Is Hard-Won'

THE DEDICATED DIRECTOR AND ACTRESS TALKS ABOUT BEING THE BOSS, BRINGING HER BOYS TO WORK AND MAKING HER WILD NEW MOVIE COCAINE BEAR 

- ERIC ANDERSSON

Many kids would jump at the chance to appear in a big-budget Hollywood movie. Elizabeth Banks’s sons are not those kids. When she was directing the bold new horror-comedy Cocaine Bear in Ireland in 2021, she enlisted Felix, 11, and Magnus, 10—her children with husband Max Handelman—to be extras in the background of one scene. “They did it for an hour,” says Banks, who recalls they were more interested in the snacks from the craft services table. “They were like, ‘Can we leave? We’re so bored.”

But for Banks, 49, showing her kids that their mom is a boss is important. “They know that Mom loves her work, and it gives me a lot of self-worth, and it makes me happy,” she says. “We talk a lot about how everybody has to get up and do something every day. You gotta contribute,” she says. “I’m type A. I don’t nap.”

Banks herself has been climbing the Hollywood ladder for more than 25 years. She began as an actress in movies like 2005’s The 40-Year-Old Virgin and stole scenes as the deliciously snarky a cappella competition commentator in 2012’s Pitch Perfect, which she also produced. More recently she’s been directing—but she’s still not accustomed to seeing “An Elizabeth Banks film” in the credits on the big screen. “I feel, frankly, a little separated from it,” she says. “Almost like it’s some person that’s not me who has a really great name.”

Cocaine Bear is the third film Banks has directed, and in many ways it’s her riskiest. It’s not a sequel to a hit (like her directorial debut, 2015’s Pitch Perfect 2) or based on a popular franchise (her follow-up, 2019’s Charlie’s Angels).