Women’s Health’s upcoming September cover model is the talented Elizabeth Banks, who is starring in the upcoming Catching Fire (of the Hunger Games series). In her funny interview, she shares insights on her marriage, motherhood, and even meatloaf. Isn’t it nice to know how down-to-earth our favorite stars are?
Q: What advice do your friends come to you for?
A: “Mostly involves staying in relationships. I’ve had a really long, very loving relationship with my now-husband. We’ve been together 20 years, married for 10 and I love talking to people about choosing the right mate. I feel like I chose well so I like telling people about choosing.”
Q: What is your secret to lasting love?
A: “My secret to lasting love is choose well in the beginning. Do a lot of homework and laugh a lot; don’t take anything too seriously. You know, we sort of talk a lot about if you’re dreaming about the future then the little thing that’s happening today probably doesn’t matter that much. And always dream about your future together, yeah. That’s the main thing. Don’t live in the past, don’t worry about what happened yesterday; move on.”
Q: Who do you like to follow on twitter?
A: “ I like to follow really random people on twitter, like Mike Tyson. I follow a lot of politicians and just funny people, you know? I love Patton Oswalt; I love Paul Scheer; Adam Scott always makes me laugh, you know, a lot of friends, I love Rashida Jones, Mindy Kaling.”
Q: What’s something readers would be surprised to know about you?
A: “I’m fairly open about most of my bad habits; my drinking, my love of cupcakes. I’m a total night owl, we were just discussing how even though I have a baby that wakes up anywhere between 5:30 and 6:30 in the morning I still cannot get myself to bed before like 1 AM every night. So I am, um, I’m falling apart is basically what’s going on with me! I’m falling apart under the weight of lack of sleep.”
Q: If you weren’t an actress, what would you be?
A: “If I wasn’t an actress I think I would be a doctor. I was really into biology and anatomy—I loved anatomy in high school—and I love just studying the human body, I think it’s kind of fascinating. I love those shows where they get to like, cut people open and you get to see in and I’ll watch a show where they’re performing a brain surgery all day long. I love that stuff; I can’t get enough.”
Q: What do you enjoy going with your girlfriends?
A: “I love using my girlfriends to be active because it’s a great way to socialize but also sort of get something done so I’m a huge fan of hiking and chatting with my girls and playing tennis with my girls. Anytime we can get out and walk or run or bike, and we also get to socialize? That is like a double-whammy-plus-plus. I mean, I also love eating cheese and drinking wine with them, but we try to do that after we’ve done the hike.”
Q: Tell us a bit about Catching Fire.
A: “Catching Fire is going to be amazing, I mean it’s such a great movie; it was my favorite book and you know it’s the book in which Katniss Everdeen becomes the heroin of her own life story, culture, society, so I really feel like she’s such a great woman for women and girls to look up to so I’m excited for her to take her place.”
Q: Which of your future projects are you most excited about?
A: “I’m really excited about Walk of Shame, I can’t wait for people to see it, it’s coming out in March and we filmed it in Los Angeles which is very rare to get to make a movie in my home where I can go to bed at night with my husband and hang out with my kids. And it’s just a really funny, crazy movie; very relatable. I know I’ve had a lot of those nights where events went sideways and I wasn’t sure how I was going to get home or who I was going to go home with or what was going to happen to me. That’s Walk of Shame; it’s really fun!”