Paul Feig at SXSW Sydney
Filmmaker Paul Feig receives the inaugural SXSW Sydney Screen Pioneer award (image: Paul McMillan)
Paul Feig champions funny women at SXSW Sydney 2025
If there’s one thing director, writer and producer Paul Feig knows, it’s how to make audiences laugh and, perhaps more importantly, how to give women the screen space to do it. At SXSW Sydney 2025, the Bridesmaids and Spy filmmaker was honoured with the inaugural Screen Pioneer award and delivered a keynote in conversation with Australian comedian Celia Pacquola that was equal parts hilarious and heartfelt, offering a rare window into the creative engine behind some of modern comedy’s most influential works.
But the standout takeaway from Feig’s talk wasn’t about his failed Kath and Kim American remake (“not entirely my fault,” he joked) or Freaks and Geeks, it was his impassioned defense of women in comedy, a demographic he’s built an entire career championing.
“I just relate to [women’s] stories more,” Feig said matter-of-factly, recalling how growing up surrounded by strong, funny women shaped his worldview. “They make me laugh and I love their stories. I’ve never been like ‘I love movies about guys doing guy things’.”
For an audience of filmmakers, comedians and fans hanging on every word at SXSW Sydney, it was clear that Feig wasn’t just reminiscing – he was rallying.
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The feminist godfather of comedy
Feig’s filmography reads like a masterclass in female-driven storytelling. Bridesmaids redefined what a women-led studio comedy could be. Spy gave us a female James Bond with Melissa McCarthy’s unfiltered heart and humour. The Heat paired McCarthy with A-lister Sandra Bullock in an action-comedy buddy film where the laughs hit as hard as the punches. Even A Simple Favor, his glossy mystery-thriller, doubled as a stylish showcase for Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively’s chemistry.
But according to Feig, these films didn’t come from a deliberate crusade to “fix” Hollywood’s gender balance – they came from an instinct to tell stories that felt authentic and human. “I was seeing, over the years, funny women that I knew personally and in comedy, doing terrible roles and movies where they weren't allowed to be funny,” he told the SXSW Sydney crowd. “They were always the girlfriend or the wife, the ones stuck at home while the men went out to save the world.”
His frustration at seeing women sidelined on-screen became the spark that lit one of comedy’s most progressive careers. Yet, Feig admits, fighting for space for women’s voices in mainstream film is still a battle. “It’s so easy for this industry to backslide,” he warned. “Every time a female-led film underperforms, people start saying, ‘See, audiences don’t want that.’ We have to keep pushing forward.”
From Freaks and Geeks to Ghostbusters – The Feig Formula
Before he became a Hollywood powerhouse, Feig was a self-described “terrible teenage stand-up” from Michigan. After years as a journeyman actor (Sabrina the Teenage Witch fans will remember him as Mr Pool), he pivoted to directing. His first creation, Freaks and Geeks – the Judd Apatow-produced high-school dramedy that launched the careers of Seth Rogen, Linda Cardellini and Jason Segel – was pure Paul Feig: character-driven, heartfelt and painfully funny.
Feig told the SXSW Sydney audience that the show’s emotional honesty came directly from his own life. “It was all my horrible high-school stories,” he laughed. “Write what you know; it’s cliché, but it’s true. That’s why I don’t worry about AI writing. Everybody in here has some story or things that have happened in their life that is unique to you and nobody else is going through, and it's your interpretation of that, how you put it together.”
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His career since those early days has been a study in balance, marrying heart with humour, chaos with control. “My movies are dramas that just happen to be funny,” he said. “If the audience doesn’t care about the characters, the gags won’t land.”
That approach has earned him the respect of peers and performers alike. Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Rebel Wilson, Anna Kendrick, Kate McKinnon and Rose Byrne are just a few of the talents who’ve thrived under Feig’s direction. He’s known for fostering collaborative sets where improvisation isn’t just tolerated, it’s celebrated. “There's nothing worse than shutting an actor down,” he said. “You hire actors you know who are so talented and so inventive. Why would I cut off your natural font of creativity?”
Paul Feig addresses the crowd at SXSW Sydney (image: Paul McMillan)
Ghostbusters backlash, and what it taught him
When Feig rebooted Ghostbusters with an all-female cast in 2016, the backlash was as loud as the box-office buzz. The director acknowledged that political noise threatened to drown out the joy of making the movie. “We had a blast filming it,” he said, “but the pressure was real. People were saying, ‘If this movie is not successful, we don't know if we can do other female-led film’.”
It’s the kind of burden few male directors are asked to bear and he said the pressure is not fun. “It’s that thing of like, I'm a guy, am I going to ruin movies for women for the rest of eternity?” Feig joked. But the laughter was uneasy. His point was clear: progress in Hollywood is fragile. “They’re always looking for the crack in the wall,” he said. “There's been a couple of female-led things that didn't do well, and they're always trying to backslide. That’s why we can’t stop pushing. It’s up to us as filmmakers.”
Feig’s resilience in the face of that scrutiny — and his refusal to retreat from female-centric storytelling — has made him something of a feminist outlier in Hollywood’s boys’ club. “Audiences want [these stories],” he insisted.
A director who creates safe, joyful sets
Beyond gender politics, Feig’s keynote revealed a philosophy built on kindness and creative trust. “As a director, I can make you look terrible. You know, I can give you a terrible direction. I can make you go way over the top or do something and people will say ‘Boy, that actor’s really bad.’ They don't say the director is bad, they say the actor is bad, so I understand that. I need to create a safe environment where they they feel they can trust me.”
He recalled the now-legendary Bridesmaids coffee-shop scene between Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph, which was a six-hour shoot of improvisation. “We just let the cameras roll,” he said. “It was scripted, but they kept surprising each other and that energy comes through on screen.”
He also spoke about the craft of comedy or the “tonal tightrope” of keeping humour grounded in emotion. “If you don't have those character arcs, the emotion right, you've just got gags, and gags are funny, but they'll wear out an audience if they're not engaged in those characters.”
What’s next for Paul Feig?
Feig’s latest project, The Housemaid, is a straight-up thriller set for theatrical release in December. It stars Sydney Sweeney as a live-in maid who discovers the couple she is working for (played by Amanda Seyfreid and Brandon Sklenar) are hiding sinister secrets.
He also teased interest in a future original musical (“If you get it right, it’s the greatest thing in the world”) and confirmed his continued collaboration with Warner Bros Television on new projects, including one inspired by his high-school drama teacher. Some things never change.
The takeaway
Feig closed his SXSW Sydney session with a rallying cry for emerging creatives: “Be true to yourself, be true to what you love and what makes you unique… Don’t be afraid of being commercial… It is your duty to entertain, to enthral as many people as you can… Try to make the world a better place'.”
It’s advice that feels deeply Feigian: optimistic, practical and rooted in empathy. Because in an industry that too often forgets to have fun, Paul Feig keeps reminding us the best comedy punches up, not down, and everyone deserves a turn at the mic.
SXSW Sydney 2025 runs from October 13-19
