'They don't let women do this very often': Pitch Perfect 2 director and star Elizabeth Banks lifts the lid on dealing with sexism in Hollywood

By Catherine Townsend For Dailymail.com

Published: 18:18 EST, 14 May 2015 | Updated: 18:29 EST, 14 May 2015

Elizabeth Banks has lifted the lid on the pressures she felt as a director on the set of Pitch Perfect 2.

'Once you get offered a studio job, as a woman, its really hard to say no because they don’t let women do this very often,' the 41-year-old star tells Allure magazine in a new interview.  

'So I knew I needed to embrace it and I couldn't mess it up. Because if you mess it up, they don’t let you do it again, and you become representative of female directors as a whole. Like, “See girls can’t do it."'

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Loving laughter: Elizabeth Banks says that she loves to make people laugh, and compares having comedic talent to having a superpower 

Tough mentality: The 41-year-old said that her childhood growing up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts made her tenacious

The blonde bombshell, who shot to fame as Steve Carrell's drunk date in The 40 Year Old Virgin, also said that growing up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, gave her a 'toughness' and an 'immigrant mentality'.  

Every Day Ms Banks recalls, she walked her sister to school.

'If it snowed four feet the night before, too bad,' she says. 'If it was pouring rain, too bad. We used to wear little baggies over our socks, inside our shoes.

'We'd take them off in the parking lot so we wouldn't have to show everyone we had baggies on our feet.'

But rather than feeling sorry for herself, she says she found the experience 'invigorating'. 

Elizabeth Banks dazzles at Pitch Perfect 2's LA premiere

Directorial debut: Ms Banks says that she felt that she 'couldn't mess it up' because she was representative of female directors as a whole

She also confessed that when she met her husband, she really only considered him a hookup. 

'I didn’t meet my husband and think, I've mer the man Im going to marry,” she says. “ I was like he’s cute. I’ll f*** him, because I'm 18 and in college.'  

'Really, what happened was Ive never met anyone I liked more,' she says.

'And we work together every day, and we have a lot of respect for each other on every level. And then theres love. And then theres lust. So its great.' 

Ms Banks added that her greatest moment ever was making Steve Martin laugh at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party.

'Making people laugh is a very addictive thing,' she says. 'Its like having a superpower.'  

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