'The Women' shoot was diva-free, says writer-director Diane English

The Orlando Sentinel (MCT) - To Diane English, life is all about irony, these days.

It's ironic that her long-planned remake of the 1939 classic "The Women" should finally come out after the success of "Sex and the City" in movie theaters.

"If 'Sex and the City' had come out sooner, we'd have had a lot less trouble financing 'The Women,'" says English, 60.

And it's a little ironic that the creator of TV's "Murphy Brown" should be back in the public eye just as one political party rallies around someone whose daughter is doing something English's TV character was condemned for in the early '90s _ having a child out of wedlock.

"The same people who vilified Murphy Brown are putting Sarah Palin on a pedestal," English says. "I'm very confused by these Republicans."

English's labor of love is earning mixed reviews, with many, like Hollywood-Elsewhere's Jeffrey Wells, calling "The Women" "better written and acted than 'Sex & the City,'" even though it feels a few years out of date. We reached English in Chicago.

Q: For years, we heard that Julia Roberts and then Meg Ryan wanted to get this made. Why did this take so long to come to the screen?

A: Meg and Julia had both, independently, wanted to remake it. They hired me to write it, and that was in 1994!

It took so long because it's a movie with an all-female cast, a conceit from the original film. There's no male movie star in it. The feeling in Hollywood is that a movie called "The Women" featuring all women in the cast is not going to appeal to men, and men rule the box office. Of course, that was before "Sex and the City" and "Mamma Mia!"

Q: Is "The Women" still relevant?

A: We had to update it. A lot. The old movie had a lot of very old-fashioned ideas about women, very much a movie of its time, its era. Seventy years later, things have changed. Women have changed. Society, marriage, all that has changed.

Q: Annette Bening, Meg Ryan, Jada Pinkett Smith, Debra Messing, Bette Midler, Cloris Leachman, Candice Bergen, Eva Mendes. Who was the biggest diva on the set?

A: Oh, ME! I can be a real diva.

All these women, ages 11 to 82 in our cast, and not a diva in the bunch. I know the press is dying for the diva stories. But when you make a movie out of love, defer your fees, as our actresses did, gave up their perks and got the film made for under $20 million, nobody can afford to be a diva.

Q: That age-old term "chick picture" is turning up in reviews of this, a movie about women rallying around a friend whose husband is cheating. How do you feel about that?

A: I hate that term, actually. It really sounds derogatory. I expect men to love this movie, too. If we can just make men feel safe going to see it! 'No men were harmed in the making of this movie.' That should be in the ads!

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© 2008, The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.).