After her big Hollywood break in Wedding Crashers in 2005, Isla became frustrated with the lack of comedic roles for women available in film. She found she was just getting offered stereotypical “one-dimensional” ‘girlfriend’ roles, in which “women roll their eyes while the guys get all the good lines,” rather than being able to deliver the funny herself. Ever the fearless one, Isla decided to become pro-active about this and started to write her own projects! She wanted to create more comedic roles her herself, and other actresses. When asked about this new career move, Isla said of it, “I’m still being creative and moving more into production, and making sure I have a little bit more power and control over my career.”

“The reality is, for women in comedy, there aren’t many opportunities to be the funny one. There aren’t scripts written. If you want to be challenged and do the work you want, you have to create the material yourself.”

“I think there is a lack of quality roles for women in comedies. Most actresses get cast as the “eye-roller”/”the serious one,” while men in comedies get to do all the fun, silly stuff and muck around. Sometimes you just have to search hard for a role or create one for yourself.”

“There are millions of funny female actors, but I just think that there are fewer roles for them. So you have to create your own opportunities. You can’t wait for them to appear out of thin air.”

Isla’s writing career started way back in the mid 90′s, when she wrote and released two teenage romance novels entitled ‘Bewitched’ and ‘Seduced By Fame’. She enjoyed the process, and has regularly acknowledged her love of writing in the years since, but admits that she is “too gregarious” to write more novels. Instead, she has turned her writing talents to film projects and says this is how she fulfils the urge to write now. “I got together and found some great writers, and I have kind of been into writing for myself and pitching it to studios, and it’s been really rewarding creatively, and relieving, because it means I’ll get the opportunity to go do that,” she told reporters in 2007.

Isla has been writing with SNL funny lady Amy Poehler on film ideas and scripts in recent years. Isla was a big fan of Amy, and after telling her agent this, a lunch was arranged for the two of them to meet. They’ve been developing ideas since. Back in 2005 it was announced that Isla and Amy would co-star in female driven comedy Groupies, based on an idea they came up with themselves. Somewhere along the line Isla and Amy joined Erica Rivinoja on script writing duties, presumably because Isla felt the project wasn’t getting the attention it deserved, and she felt it was worth developing. Isla was again keen to make sure the script let the girls get the chance to show off their funny sides, rather than letting the boys get all the good stuff. Isla stated that she and Amy wrote a lot of the gags and basic structure for Groupies, but that they hired Erica Rivinoja to write the script itself and put it all together. They’ve been developing this project ever since 2005-ish, and it is often brought up in interviews with Isla. Possibly because of Amy’s work on her TV show Parks And Recreation, and Isla’s burgeoning film career and family, we haven’t had any solid news on it’s progress in recent years. Read more about Groupies and the latest status updates on the projects Isla has in development on our In Development page.

Talking about the process of writing, whether it be novels or scripts, Isla says, “With all writing, you think on the spot, really, and then you go back and make sure it all fits together.” Always wanting to get the perfect joke, Isla admits to rewriting several of her lines, much to “the distress” of those working with her! She recognises the frustrations of writing and developing your own work though, noting that “it’s more frustrating being in development than it is to just be cast in something, obviously, because a lot of it is out of your control.” It can take a lot of time to get the script right, not to mention then getting the approval and funding from studios to actually shoot the project.

However, this is clearly something Isla is very passionate about and dedicated to, and we have no doubt she means what she says and will continue to do her best to develop more comedic projects for herself and other actresses. She has even hinted a couple of times in interviews that she has ideas for new projects and/or has recently pitched new ideas but can’t talk about them yet. Apparently she has sold two comedy scripts to major Hollywood studios, too. We greatly her admire her dedication to providing more comedic material for actresses, and really can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.