2025

Rosalind Ross

Writer & Director

“…All I want is a fair shot at proving that I’m the best and I don’t want to be the best woman. I want to be the best, period.”

What qualities do you feel make up a Power Woman? What do you feel aligns with that?

I would say there are many facets to it, but I think it’s the ability to harness your fears into growth and action and the ability to inspire and motivate those around you and to instill confidence in others—whether or not you have it yourself. It’s that genuine desire to lift up other people around you and to convey the value of other people in your life. And I think when I look at the women who I most admire in my life, those are the qualities that really define them. Those are the qualities that I aspire to have myself as well. I think that applies to any powerful person in my mind. It’s sort of genderless.

It’s about what makes a great leader, whether you’re the leader of your family or you’re the leader of a film set, or you’re the leader of the free world. I guess on a more personal level, I feel like it’s having that unwavering belief in yourself that persists in spite of setbacks or rejection or lack of support.

You touched on something just a moment ago that is very relevant to one of the questions that we’re posing here. The country is divided for so many different reasons. If there was something that you would throw in the mix as a way to bring everybody together, what would that look like for you? What would you draw on to try and make those people that are divided, less divided?

I’m not sure that this would accomplish that, but I think generally speaking one of the biggest issues in society, and humanity, that’s not really talked about is child abuse. I think that it ranges from emotional and physical abuse in the home to child trafficking, which is the huge hot button thing now. But I feel that that’s something that’s not discussed in a way that it really should be for as serious and as important as it is in determining the outcome of a person as an adult and the kind of person they become.

For me, it’s the most egregious of sins, and it’s rampant beneath our noses. Aside from having a child myself and feeling extremely passionate about that, I’ve encountered a lot of people, whether they’re laypeople or inmates in a prison. If you look at the common thread among people who have issues with anger and inability to control their emotions, a lot of it stems from childhood. And so I guess if someday I’m so lucky as to have a soapbox where anybody cares to listen, I would get on there and make that a bigger issue.

Whether it’s our female counterparts or male counterparts, we need to come together for that conversation. What do you think it would take to kind of have that happen? How do we bring both parties together to unite on something that impacts all of us?

Schools would be a great place to begin opening up that conversation. You know, I think there’s so much repression in society nowadays and I think I’ve seen it in myself where people who are completely divided on issues are very contentious. I’ve seen those people when put in a room together to have a real conversation about the issues at hand, they start to go deeper and look at the common threads from their lives. I have seen on a few accounts personally, watch people bury the hatchet and become great friends from having the realization of the common experience. I don’t know how you make that happen on a larger level, but it’s definitely worth trying to figure out.

What do you feel was the defining moment that led you to where you are today?

Oh goodness, it’s hard to think of one. I mean for me, writing was where it started. Writing for me was a means of escaping a reality that I didn’t care to be in. From the age of seven, I can remember taking such comfort in a piece of paper and a pencil and slipping into a world of my own creation, and being lost in it for hours, creating people out of nothing that were people I would rather spend my time with. I guess that’s not a moment necessarily, but I think that was the birth of my artistic journey.

I knew I wanted to be a writer always. There was no question about that. I was not good at anything else and had no interest in anything else. But there have been numerous times when I’ve been told that I couldn’t do something, but that makes me a thousand times more motivated to show that I can. I think I had some experiences early on in my career that could have caused me to try to go down different paths because they were so discouraging. I had an experience early on—an experience with somebody who I worked for. When this person was rejected, they went on a mission to destroy my burgeoning career and got me dropped from my agency. It was one of those moments where I thought, “sh*t, do I even want to be in this?”

I think that was kind of a turning point for me because that’s when I really decided to get serious and show everybody that, or show myself really, I was worth more than what this person was telling me I was worth.

I do have some fun questions I’d like to draw on. If you could have somebody else’s job for the day, whose job would you like?

A farmer. I have so much respect and appreciation for the people who grow our food and keep us alive. I don’t know, there’s some part of me that romanticizes that job. I know it’s anything but glamorous. I feel like I could use a good, hard serve of reality.

Can you tell us the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

That rejection is just redirection. Wow. That is in my head every day, because that’s what the whole industry is about. You’re just getting rejected over and over and over again. Now it doesn’t bother me one bit because I know that it’s leading me one step closer to the thing I’m supposed to do.

What do you value in friends?

I value when they will call me out for my shit. Really, I do. I value having friends that love me so much that they’ll be brutally honest with me when I’m being irrational or unreasonable or whatever negative trait I may be displaying. I think that’s the sign of a true friend. There’s no placating. I mean everybody wants their girlfriends who jump on with you when you hate him for a minute, but when it gets to a certain point you want someone who can really set your compass right.

Tell me the best reads that you’ve had recently or a good book that you’re reading right now that you think should be something somebody should pick up?

The best read I’ve had recently…it’s like a self-help book, I guess you would call it. It’s called The Reclaimed Woman, and I feel like that’s an appropriate one to mention. It’s by Kelly Brogan—she’s like a holistic psychiatrist.

She has some kind of controversial views on things. So if you were to Google her, it would probably scare you. But the book is amazing. It just talks a lot about femininity and what it means to be a woman in her feminine energy. It really spoke to me because, particularly in this industry, I think I’ve gone through periods where I felt like I needed to apologize for my feminine qualities in order to get jobs or be respected. And in the last few years, I felt like I could embrace those things and not be ashamed of them and not try to androgynize the way I look to be respected. It’s about using your womanly-ness for your benefit and feeling that that’s a kind of superpower as opposed to something you need to be ashamed of.

Why is it that you can’t just be a woman anymore? What is it with letting the gentleman open the door for you? What is wrong with that? You want to be liberated and—

I know it’s insane. Of course I can open a door, but I love feeling taken care of, and I don’t think that makes me any less strong or independent of a woman. You would love this book if you read it because it talks a lot about how—I’m sorry to be graphic—but it talks a lot about how a woman in her feminine energy wants to be respected, but also ravaged.

There’s been this kind of masculinization of women I think, because I think women have felt like they need to, in order to be bosses, adopt those more masculine qualities. And I just don’t think that’s true at all. It’s like, what is the fear that a woman who is emotional and passionate is any less qualified to lead? I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure that my emotion and my passion is responsible for 100% of my success, so those aren’t qualities that I want to bury, right?

One of the things that we talk about all the time is having males and females coming together, and having gender equality and representation in a boardroom. It’s those hard facts that have sort of indicated that it increases the bottom line. And it is beneficial for all reasons, both for the building of the community within the company, but also enhancing a better standard for everybody. How do you feel about that? Do you feel we’re getting there? Do you feel there’s still a long way to go?

I really believe that the best and most qualified people should always be the ones making the decisions. And I believe that there are an equal number of women and men who are qualified to do a large percentage of things in general. Yeah. Equal representation is extremely important and will be of benefit to society, but it’s tricky. I feel like women, maybe this is just me and not women in general, but I, as a woman, don’t want to exist on a graded playing field. I don’t want to be given a handout or an exception or to feel like I didn’t earn my spot, but it was conceded to me because of some kind of mandate. I think I want to know that I was the best one to get the job or earn the prize, and all I want is a fair shot at proving that I’m the best and I don’t want to be the best woman. I want to be the best, period.

Do you feel sometimes that the space needs nudging? Because if you don’t nudge the space, a lot of power that has been driven by the people that are there is often not divided enough to give everybody a chance. You’ve worked so much that you’ve now got to wait till somebody at the top passes before you’re even going to get to step into the position. I just feel sometimes it’s unfortunate for all the people that are qualified don’t even get a chance.

No, I completely agree with that statement. I think there does need to be a nudge and I don’t know what that looks like on a larger level. I know that I’ve seen it and felt it and been the recipient of it well within my industry. I can tell you one of my favorite stories from my career that illustrates the solidarity of women in Hollywood is when I was pregnant, actually, when I was pitching to try to get a job. The job was to write the script about the woman who created the Barbie doll. I was so scared that I wouldn’t be hired because I was pregnant, so I hid the pregnancy the whole time. The studio approved me as the writer, but I had one final round of interviews before I actually got it.

That was an interview with Reese Witherspoon. She was going to produce and star in the film. The meeting with her was set for probably a week after I gave birth, and it was a call, so I put my baby down for a nap, and I was nervous because I really wanted this job, and I really wanted to impress her. I go in the room next door and get on the call. Reese gets on and we all introduce ourselves. I just got into my pitch. I was like four sentences in and I heard the baby crying and I was home alone. I can’t leave the baby crying so I said, “So sorry, but I just had a baby. He woke up from the nap and I gotta go put him back to sleep.” In my mind I’m thinking, well, now I’ve lost the job, right? And Reese, to her credit, was so cool. She was like, “Oh honey, of course, take, take all the time you need. We’ve all been there.” It just meant so much to me to have that support from another woman who’s clearly had this same predicament.

So I went in there, I put the baby back to sleep, I came back in, I finished the pitch, and I got the job. It was really one of those moments I’ve had with different actresses where they’ve stood up for me, taken my side over some big male director because they didn’t like the way the guy treated me. I mean, there’s so much amazing female solidarity in this industry and I think that those are the nudges too in a subtle way.

Whether you’re in Hollywood or politics or whatever the sort of larger than life career is, to feel like you have to pretend those things don’t exist in order to have that life and that career. But we’re all slugging it out on the home front in order to have this glamorous career.

I remember when I went into Netflix for a meeting, this was years ago, I noticed that they had whole postpartum rooms for their employees, like breastfeeding rooms, daycare centers, for new moms. I thought that was so cool.