Zoe Kravitz Launches Creative Collective To Challenge Diversity In Hollywood

Twenty-seven-year-old Zoe Kravitz is tired of all the talk in Hollywood about inclusion and the divide that the #OscarSoWhite controversy created among her peers and colleagues. So now, the daughter of musician Lenny Kravitz and actress Lisa Bonet says if she wants her image to be properly represented in the media, then she has to do it herself. Kravitz has launched a creative collective with Hollywood dreamers (filmmakers, actors, writers), and their goal is to gather weekly to write a script that reflects the diverse world in which we live, Salon reports.

“I love the fact that there’s such an open dialogue right now about women in Hollywood and black women and black men in Hollywood and everything in between. Now it’s about us bringing the change,” Kravitz said in a recent interview. “We started the dialogue but I don’t expect any man to write a script that speaks for me. I don’t expect any man to write a script for me. I think we need to do that. If we want to be represented properly in Hollywood, let’s represent ourselves properly in Hollywood.”

The model/actress has previously spoken about the racism she has endured while trying to get out of the shadow of her famous parents. Check out the short clip below in which she talks about being told she’s too “urban” to audition for The Dark Knight Rises.

Zoe said her goal now is to be proactive by not accepting roles she views as stereotypical, and with her team of creatives, she plans to push forward and be a leader in the change that black Hollywood has called for.

“It’s our responsibility to say ‘I’m not going to take the same role over and over again.’ I mean, of course actors gotta eat, but if it’s something you believe in, we have the power to break the stereotypes by a) writing our own things and b) saying no to the same thing over and over again,” Kravitz said.

In addition to fronting a rock band called Lolawolf, Zoe launched her acting career with films such as No Reservations. The Brave One, X-Men: First Class, and Dope. Last year, she played Toast the Knowing in George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, which was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Kravitz returns as Christina in The Divergent Series: Allegiant, the third movie in the franchise, currently playing in U.S. cinemas. Despite her lineage and the privilege that comes with it, Zoe knows her journey will be one wrought with discrimination.

“People have tried to do that to me over and over again and I’ve been fighting it and fighting it,” Kravitz said. “I would get auditions and it would be like ‘they want you to play the best friend.’ And it’s like ‘why can’t I audition for the lead?’ Then it’ll be like ‘ok now you’re the quirky black girl,’ or ‘now you’re a hippie. I can play all kinds of people. I don’t have to play myself.”

Jimmy & @ZoeKravitz go head-to-head in a game of Inflatable Flip Cup! https://t.co/PKTNhNego9 pic.twitter.com/SpVrEYcIou

— Fallon Tonight (@FallonTonight) March 20, 2016

There’s one film left in the Divergent series; Ascendant starts filming later this summer. When asked if she enjoys revisiting this character again, Kravitz told the Vancouver Sun the role gives her the chance to “try different things.”

“Yeah, you have a few chances to try different things, especially working with the same people. You’re not walking on eggshells,” she said, adding that she enjoys the amount of control she’s allowed to have with her character.

“I have a certain amount of control. We know these characters so well now. It’s easy for me to say that this is not something I feel Christina would say or do.”

She just wrapped the thriller Vincent N Roxxy with Emile Hirsch, which she describes as a “good old-fashioned, bloody, broken-heart love story.”

Zoe Kravitz is currently filming the dark HBO miniseries Big Little Lies with Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon.

[Images courtesy Casey Curry/Invision/AP]