Patricia Arquette: My mum’s a brilliant woman

Patricia Arquette learned about female empowerment from her mother.

The 47-year-old made waves at the Academy Awards this year, when she used her Best Supporting Actress winner’s speech to comment on wage equality. And it seems the star got her feminist attitude from her mother Brenda, who gave Patricia and her four siblings a solid upbringing in Chicago, Illinois.

“I feel like my mom did everything for us, we had very little but she’s a brilliant woman,” she told The Hollywood Reporter.

All of Patricia’s brothers and sisters - David, Richmond, Alexis and Rosanna - have joined her in the acting world. While the Boyhood star still loves taking on new characters, she is becoming increasingly focused on dealing with the issue of wage inequality and sexism in Hollywood. During her chat with the outlet, she opened up how she dealt with one particular producer’s bad behaviour.

“I did have to ban a producer from his own movie,” she recalled. “He was actually physically inappropriate with a lot of people in the cast and a lot of extras and I was talking to the insurance people and I was like ‘I cannot do a scene with this guy’ and he’s bad guys, like this guy is really a lawsuit waiting to happen.”

As well as her work on the big screen, Patricia has had major success in TV series Medium. And earlier this year her new show, CBS’ CSI: Cyber, premiered to hit ratings. Patricia is thrilled that a network is focusing on giving women of all ages strong roles to work with.

“We definitely talked about it, but it wasn’t my idea to have a middle aged woman be the new lead of CSI it was their idea,” she said. “They were very clear about wanting more woman and also wanting minorities to be present and wanting to have a realistic vision of what is really happening in America.”