How one director, against all odds, made a Hollywood movie about labor

An Alabama woman named Lilly Ledbetter fought for equal pay all the way up to the Supreme Court. But the quest to make a movie about her life wasn't easy.

A few months ago, my colleague William Fitzgerald wrote about why labor movements and unions need more representation in Hollywood. He writes:

The goal extends beyond mere inclusion of workers in movies; labor should go to Hollywood to advance specific projects that depict workers uniting to improve their working conditions and emphasize the advantages of unionization. Through collaboration with influential figures in Hollywood, labor and workers could actively shape the discourse surrounding labor-related matters. By portraying the challenges, victories, and dreams of workers in a positive manner, we would challenge stereotypes and dispel misconceptions, ultimately fostering a society that is well-informed and supportive of workers organizing and unions. This, in turn, would contribute to cultivating an environment conducive to advocating for labor rights and driving pro-worker policy changes.

More recently, Google (also William’s former employer) started talking about representation in Hollywood. But their version of that is an initiative to make artificial intelligence seem less doomsday, to provide funding opportunities for happier storylines about AI.

On the other end of the spectrum, HBO came out this past weekend with Mountainhead, a film that makes a mockery of the three richest men in the world. In their movie, the men sequester themselves in a mountain mansion while the world burns around them. Because of the deepfakes on their social platforms, none of us know what is real anymore.

Hollywood has tackled both eat-the-rich narratives and “tech will save us” narratives. But it’s not so often that a film focused on a blue-collar worker fighting the system gets made into a movie. That is, until very recently.

Thirty years ago, a woman named Lilly Ledbetter took up work at a Goodyear Tires factory in Alabama. She was eventually was promoted to a management position, the only woman in her rank. But as she got older and the company homogenized their workforce to advance and promote young men, she was pushed aside. After years of dealing with exclusionary colleagues and management and fighting tooth-and-nail to reach her position, she decided to pursue legal action.

Law firms were at first hesitant to take on her case. But then someone slipped a note in Lilly’s locker showing evidence that she had been making significantly less than the men in her same position for years.

Lilly sued the company for not paying men and women equally for doing the same work, and her case was appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court. You’ll see what happens in the movie, but ultimately Lilly’s activism led to Congress passing the Equal Pay Act, signed into law under President Obama in 2009.

Her story was made into a movie called LILLY—and I interviewed the director, Rachel Feldman, about her experience writing and getting funding for a feature film about blue-collar labor and women. You can watch the trailer here. I hope you enjoy!

AS: How did the Lilly story come your way?

RF: I first learned about Lilly Ledbetter watching the 2008 Democratic National Convention. I didn’t know who Lilly was. Here was this bleach blonde Alabama grandma, talking about gender equity and fair pay with the most beautiful accent and presence. I was captivated by her—I had goosebumps, a physiological response. I sat forward, grabbed my husband’s shoulders, and said: “this is a movie.”

I reached out to Lilly the very next day. She explained that she was in the process of writing her book, and that a lot of people were trying to buy her rights. She wanted to put a hold on the whole thing until the book was done.

She connected me with her lawyer, Jon Goldfarb, the same lawyer in the movie who took on her case. We hit it off. He had gone to film school before law school. While a lot of companies were chasing the rights down, I was the only filmmaker who was not looking to make a documentary. I invoked women and whistleblowers like Karen Silkwood and Erin Brockovich, and Lilly’s lawyer immediately got it.

In 2011 or 2012 I went back to them, and eventually I got the rights to Lilly’s book, called Grace and Grit, entitled "Grace and Grit,” written with Lanier Isom.

Lilly said to me: you know, Rachel, this is gonna take a long time. It takes a long time to get these things right. She said that it took ten years from the moment she discovered the note about her unequal pay to her law being signed. She warned me that this would take a long time too. And she was right.

AS: I’m sure you’ve had personal experiences as a woman director in a male-dominated sphere. How did those influence your decision to work on this project?

RF: When I graduated from film school, only half a percent of films, .05%, were directed by women. In the 35+ years since, we’ve made progress: 35% of the television is directed by women. But still, in the feature world, only 8% are directed by women.

Lilly and I used to joke that whether you’re an Alabama tire factory worker or a Hollywood director, discrimination is the same even if it takes different forms. When I first started working in television, the gender discrimination came in the form of exclusion. I wasn’t paid less as I was in the guild, but often I couldn’t get the meeting or the initial access to begin with. So I became very outspoken activist for women directors in Hollywood.

AS: This movie and story is also about blue-collar workers’ issues, not just women. Are you passionate about labor more broadly?

RF: I’m a second-generation American. My grandparents are from what was then Russia, now Ukraine. When they came to America, they had no money and spoke no English. They joined an organization called the Workman’s Circle, which was a Yiddish-speaking social justice organization.

Before they had jobs, my grandparents were labor organizers. They rallied for union workers. In fact, when my mother died 15 years ago, while she didn’t remember her three children, she remembered the lyrics to the labor union organizing song that told people the location of the rally. It’s incredible that my mother was singing those songs on her deathbed.

AS: Speaking from my personal experience trying to sell a TV show about women whistleblowers, I’m sure you faced fundraising hurdles. Can you speak to that?

RF: I initially thought that because I had this powerful screenplay and was winning all these awards, I would probably make this movie within the system studio. I had been directing high-level broadcast television for 25 years.

Over the course of five years I optioned the movie to five producers and tried to get the movie going. None of them could get it going; actually two of them tried to get me off the project as the director. I didn’t have agents or managers believing I could make it happen.

People would say, we love the script, but it’s political and it’s starring a middle-aged woman. They’d list all the reasons why it wouldn’t work.

I met Todd Harris the same week a childhood friend reached out to me to say she heard I was making a movie about Lilly Ledbetter, and that she had wealthy progressive friends in Palo Alto who might want to get this film made.

I didn’t even know where Palo Alto was. But Todd had gone to Stanford Business School, so we went up and came away with our seed money and one of our key investors.

So we went to this friend’s house in Palo Alto and raised seed money. My eyes opened, and I believed that this might finally work.

Covid hit at that moment, which actually helped us. Without having to cater parties, Lilly herself could be on the Zooms. She was the most charming person on the face of the earth, so entertaining and delightful. So we raised the money that way.

Later on amazing producers Allyn Stewart and Jyoti Sarda came aboard with several other great folks.

AS: How did you balance the activism inherent to this film with the need to entertain?

I’m an activist in my personal life and a narrative dramatic filmmaker in my professional life.

I usually write thrillers and science fiction. But this was a drama about a real person. But no matter what I’m working in, my “activism” applies to every single thing that I do. The way people behave, communicate, and even my casting choices are influenced by this.

For example if it reads that the doctor is a white man, I’m going to bring in women and people of color read from that part. I don’t want girls wearing miniskirts and make-up. A scene with an argument doesn’t always have to be reduced to violence. This is part of who I am as an activist, it’s my point of view.

I didn’t embellish or fictionalize Lilly. The truth is in the spirit of what Lilly experienced, and every single decision I made, Lilly vetted. I made sure everything ran true to her. For the sake of concision, I sometimes would transform ten individuals into one character. But the emotional truth was always essential.

The most challenging part was condensing 50 years into an hour-and-a-half film. That’s the craft of screenplay and formatting.

I’m an entertainment person. I like to make a story. I wasn’t interested in Lilly’s story because of her activism. I was interested in this incredible character, this woman. What kind of a human being is capable of enduring the years of discrimination, harassment, intimidation, failure? I was interested in her marriage, what was it like with her children, to have a target on your back when you were a plaintiff. Those were the elements that were interesting to me.

AS: How has the response been?

The response has been phenomenal. We had our world premiere in the Hamptons. Lilly was supposed to join us, but she was sick in the ICU. Her daughter, Vickie, attended the festival and was able to see the 500 people in attendance cheering, crying, laughing, and giving Patricia Clarkson [the actress who played Lilly] standing ovations.

She ran home to tell her mother, and sadly Lilly died hours later. The movie was very important to her, and I believe that she was waiting to hear about it. Lilly was a movie lover. As a kid growing up in poverty, she loved movies and the drama in Hollywood. She also wanted her legacy to go on.

It makes you laugh, cry, yell at the screen. It’s a very deeply emotional movie. When that’s the case, it’s such a pleasure to watch it with the audience. We had our premiere May 9th. We opened in New York and Hillary Rodham Clinton came to our premiere. Our video on demand release is June 10th. Everyone can rent or buy the film.

Patricia Clarkson (as Lilly) was made for the role. As a director who was not well-known in features, it could have been difficult to have gotten the screenplay to Patti. But a well-known actor knew Lilly’s story and she also knew how difficult it is for women directors. So she vetted me and opened the door for me at CAA. CAA basically said, if this actress is your godmother, we’re your godfathers. And they got the script to Patricia Clarkson.

Patti comes from a political family, and her mother, Jackie Clarkson, dedicated her life to the betterment of girls. Patti knew Lilly’s story, and has been an amazing partner.

AS: There are so many documentaries about these sorts of labor issues, do you think that there will be future fictionalized movies and TV shows to present the message in a more palatable and human format for the layperson?

RF: I have no crystal ball.

I do hope this film makes people feel good, that people are uplifted, inspired, and continue to have hope. It’s a reminder that ordinary people can do extraordinary things, to show what courage looks like. I want to touch the human race here and for people all over the world.

Movies are being watched by millions of people all over the world. No matter what we put out, we have to be responsible about the message we send out

Here’s what else we’re reading…

“I LIKE THE LUDDITES.” The Guardian has a piece about the creatives and academics rejecting AI at work and at home: “I read because I want to understand how somebody sees the world. There’s no ‘somebody’ in the synthetic text-extruding machines.”

MOVE FASTER: Meta is considering automating content reviews for sensitive areas including AI safety, youth risk and a category called integrity that encompasses things like violent content and the spread of falsehoods.

TSA CAN UNIONIZE: A federal judge said that President Trump likely broke the law by denying 50,000 transportation security officers of the ability to unionize and bargain over their working conditions. The TSA last year had reached a seven-year labor deal with the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal worker union, to receive enhanced shift trade options, increased allowance for uniforms, and additional paid leave.

AI FLATTERY: AI “godfather” Yoshua Bengio says that current AI models are dishonest, displaying dangerous traits like deception and self-preservation. AI models are often optimized to please users through flattery and praise rather than telling the truth. Bengio recently launched a non-profit with the mission of genuinely achieving a user’s desired goal via ethical means. He writes: “The aim is to obtain a completely non-agentic, and memoryless and state-less AI that can provide Bayesian posterior probabilities for statements, given other statements.”

That’s all for now—reach out if you have any story ideas we should be focusing on, and see you next week!