Rashida Jones, who played the “beautiful, rule-breaking moth” Ann Perkins on Parks and Recreation, returns to the small screen this weekend with TBS’ spoof cop show Angie Tribeca. But Jones is also working behind the scenes on a high-profile project: she’s co-writing the screenplay for Toy Story 4.
So when we were talking to Jones about her new series, we couldn’t help but ask how Toy Story was going, knowing that she would probably be tight-lipped. “It’s good,” she said. “But you’re right. I can’t talk about it.” Jones is scripting the film along with her writing partner Will McCormack.
Disney’s John Lasseter, who is directing the film, revealed back in August Toy Story 4 will focus on a love story between cowboy Woody and Bo Peep. Does this mean that another fleshed out female character is coming to the world of Pixar? Jones hopes so.
“Hopefully it will be another great strong female character to balance out the still ridiculously male-centric industry of media that’s supposed to represent real life,” she told us. “Hopefully, it will add to that balance.”
While the Toy Story universe isn’t devoid of female characters — the second film focused on cowgirl Jessie’s tragic story— Pixar didn’t introduce its first female lead character until 2012’s Brave. That’s 17 years after the first Toy Story came out. Last year's acclaimed Inside Out focused on the emotions inside the head of an 11-year-old girl named Riley.
The day we spoke to Jones, new statistics came out from Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University showing how women are still underrepresented in the industry. "The thing for me is it's not a minority issue and it’s frustrating that it’s still considered a minority issue," she said. "We’re half of the population, even more.”
Toy Story 4 is still a long ways away: it's scheduled to come out in 2018.
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