<\/p>\n
\n\tMargaret Atwood<\/a> recalls MGM\u2019s straight-to-series order in 2016 to adapt her dystopian classic\u00a0novel The Handmaid\u2019s Tale <\/em>as a Hulu series as being a touch risky.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt was a gamble. And the gamble paid off. Anybody approaching me earlier who said we wanted to make a film about The Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/em>, I would have said, \u2018Who\u2019s going to watch that?\u2019\u201d she told the second annual Hollywood Reporter <\/em>Women in Entertainment<\/a> Canada gala at the Ritz Carlton in Toronto on Thursday.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWhen it came out, a certain number of people felt it was illuminating because, surely, the United States would never, ever do such things,\u201d the acerbic Canadian author, poet and activist said as she picked up the Icon Award at the Ritz Carlton. She talked about the success in adapting her 1985 dystopian novel just as Hulu<\/a>\u2019s\u00a0The Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/em> has reached the climax for its sixth and final season, and as a small- screen treatment for her 2019 follow-up novel, The Testaments,<\/em> is shooting in Toronto.<\/p>\n \n\tAtwood was among a host of Canadian leading ladies celebrated at The Hollywood Reporter<\/a><\/em>\u2018s second annual WIE Canada event. The all-day gathering was attended by top homegrown producers, actors, musicians and execs like Orphan Black<\/a><\/em> breakout Humberly Gonz\u00e1lez, Toronto Film Fest chief programmer Anita Lee, AEG Presents exec Debra Rathwell and Cinespace Studios exec Magali Simard.<\/p>\n \n\tEmotional highpoints for the event included The Sex Lives of College Girls<\/em>\u00a0star Amrit Kaur, on stage to accept the Breakthrough Award, calling on her fellow Canadian women in the room, and especially decision-makers, to be more feisty as they create and tell stories.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWomen have intuition. We\u2019re not scared of the truth the way men are. We understand the human condition. We\u2019ve dealt with oppression. We don\u2019t take no for an answer. I want you guys to fund art that fuels our fire as women, as humanitarians and as artists\u201d Kaur declared.<\/p>\n \n\tAlso on hand was Shirley Halperin, co-editor-in-chief of THR, <\/em>and Jeanie Pyun, deputy editorial director of THR<\/em>, to introduce this year\u2019s WIE Canada Power List spotlighting 45 trailblazers breaking through and building the future of film, TV and music north of the border.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe are delighted to recognize the achievements of a diverse group of powerhouse women,\u201d Halperin said as she looked over the crowded ballroom while calling many of 45 leading ladies in attendance onto the stage to rapturous cheers and applause. WIE Canada attendees were also treated to a performance of \u201cI\u2019m Done\u201d by singer-songwriter Rachelle Show.<\/p>\n \n\tAnd the first cohort of the WIE Canada Mentorship Program \u2014 Jessica Commanda, Aman Kaur Khangura, Julisa Marcel, Kipola Wakilongo, Olivia Weatherall and Dianne Wulf \u2014 also took to the Ritz Carlton stage alongside their instructors as they look ahead to personalized mentorship, workshops and networking to turbocharge their careers.<\/p>\n \n\tAnother high point was Christina Jennings, founder and president of Shaftesbury, producer of the period police procedural\u00a0Murdoch Mysteries\u00a0<\/em>and the dog-and-cop family series\u00a0Hudson & Rex, <\/em>receiving the Glass Ceiling Award. A child of the 1960s and the 1970s, Jennings recalled a golden age for women\u2019s rights as a young woman.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI saw myself as no less capable than a man, and I never believed that, outside of physical strength, I couldn\u2019t do anything that a man could do,\u201d she recalled. Jennings, sister of the late ABC News anchor Peter Jennings, then looked to the U.S. today where women face backlash in the workplace and the wider society amid the Donald Trump administration.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWomen\u2019s rights are being challenged and taking away the progress we made. It\u2019s frightening to see that <\/em>diversity, equity and inclusion, those rights that we fought so strongly for, are being stripped back in the United States of America,\u201d she called out. Also Thursday, Killers of the Flower Moon <\/em>actress Tantoo Cardinal, who is of Cree and M\u00e9tis heritage, picked up the Equity in Entertainment Award.<\/p>\n \n\tShe spoke of Canada\u2019s indigenous peoples having come through the impact of Canada\u2019s infamous\u00a0residential schools\u00a0and the Sixties Scoop atrocities on the country\u2019s indigenous people. \u201cI came from a powerful people. Our history will tell you we found truths in our survival of atrocities, in the marrow of the children that survived, and touched by the spirits of those that did not,\u201d Cardinal said as she underscored the power of healing and self-discovery through storytelling.<\/p>\n \n\tAnd legendary fashion and lifestyle journalist Jeanne Beker, receiving the Impact Award, touted being able to make a career in Canada in the 1980s and 1990s, at a time when women weren\u2019t as supportive of one another as they are today. \u201cThere was intense competition. I felt it, and I felt threatened by women,\u201d an emotional Beker recalled.<\/p>\n \n\tBut times changed. \u201cTo see this incredible community out here, just radiating so much light and so much support, it\u2019s absolutely heart-swelling. Thanks to all of you for hanging on and being on this incredible journey,\u201d Beker added.<\/p>\n \n\tThe second annual WIE Canada summit once again brought together the Canadian industry across TV, film and music to celebrate and recognize the achievements of women driving the industry forward. The event\u2019s return, produced once again by Access Canada, followed the successful first WIE Canada summit in 2024 attended by iconic Canadian entertainers like Lilly Singh, Nia Vardalos, Devery Jacobs, Kim Cattrall, Catherine Reitman and Jully Black.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.hollywoodreporter.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Margaret Atwood recalls MGM\u2019s straight-to-series order in 2016 to adapt her dystopian classic\u00a0novel The Handmaid\u2019s Tale as a Hulu series as being a touch risky. \u201cIt was a gamble. And the gamble paid off. Anybody approaching me earlier who said we wanted to make a film about The Handmaid\u2019s Tale, I would have said, \u2018Who\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1950954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[25850,326050,341373,31190,327934],"class_list":["post-1950953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-hulu","tag-margaret-atwood","tag-orphan-black","tag-the-hollywood-reporter","tag-women-in-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Margaret-Atwood-Praises-THRs-Women-in-Entertainment-Canada-Honorees.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1950953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1950953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1950953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1950954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1950953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1950953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1950953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}