Game of Thrones actress Natalie Dormer gets in front as well as behind the camera for the thriller In Darkness, a movie she began writing nearly 10 years ago when frustrated by the lack of "three-dimensional" roles for women.
The 36-year-old, also known for television series The Tudors and The Hunger Games films, stars as blind pianist Sofia, who hears her upstairs neighbor being murdered, leading her into a dark world of war criminals.
Dormer started the script in 2009, but says things have changed on screen since then with female-lead films in movies such as Black Swan and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
"It was pre this revolution we've had in wanting fully fleshed out three-dimensional flawed women as our protagonists. I think we can, storytelling wise, see that wave — slower than we would have wanted, but it's happening," she said in an interview.
"Behind the camera is a much more pertinent question. ... If it took me seven years to get my independent movie shot it's ... the female writers, directors, cinematographers who are trying to get their stuff made now that we won't see for years."
Women made up 18 percent of writers, directors, producers, editors and cinematographers who worked on the 250 biggest-grossing movies in the United States last year, little changed from 1998, according to the Centre for the Study of Women in Television and Film.
Dormer shares the film's writing credits with her fiance, Anthony Byrne, who directs. Both are producers.
Asked about working behind the camera for the first time, Dormer told Reuters: "It's just a completely different experience from being a gun for hire. I'm concerned and invested in everybody doing their job in that room, which is a completely different thing to being an actor.
"To be perfectly honest, I love the team sport element of it and I got a real kick out of it," she added.
