The Actress Roundtable Discusses the Bechdel Test

You know what passes the Bechdel Test? A group conversation with various actresses about the Bechdel Test. Jennifer Lawrence (Die My Love) brought up the famous metric at the 2025 Hollywood Reporter Actress Roundtable, after interviewer Seija Reinkin asked about the strength of current female characters. “Do you care if [the script] passes the Bechdel Test?” Lawrence asked her fellow roundtable attendee Cynthia Erivo (Wicked: For Good), referring to the representation benchmark originated by cartoonist Alison Bechdel in a 1985 comic. “You know what?” Erivo responded. “I didn’t care. But now I do.” “Yeah,” Lawrence responded with a giggle of agreement.

“I’m always like, ‘How much is she speaking?” Erivo continued. “And what is she saying when she does speak? Because, I don’t know that you can tell a story if she’s silent only. We can all speak with our eyes, of course, and I love when we can, but conversation is conversation. And so I think I do. That’s a great question.” 

Then, Renate Reinsve, the Norwegian actress who starred in Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, chimed in with admitted confusion. “What’s the word, Backdel Test?” she asked. “I haven’t heard it before.” That gave Lawrence an opportunity to explain in her own terms: “You know, how often does the female character speak? And when she speaks, are they still speaking about the male character? The Wizard of Oz famously passes the Bechdel Test.” And so does this conversation!