Powerful Words From Our Incredible Women Of 2025
We revisit personal insights and profound thoughts from some of our Incredible Women of 2025 – including actors and film-makers, activists and entrepreneurs, writers and models.
Serena Williams
“When I was 17, when I won the Open for the first time, I took a decision there. I was so young, but I said I’m never going to read anything about me. At the Open, there was so much positivity, and I thought, I don’t want my head to get too big. I wanted to stay humble. I also thought if it’s negative, I don’t want to read it. I never really read an article after that.” Read Serena Williams’s PORTER interview
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
“I’m drawn to platforms that treat a woman’s interest in her appearance in a legitimate and intelligent way. I find that interesting because I’ve just felt very strongly that there are many women like me in the world, which is women who are deeply devoted to their intellectual interior lives, but also care about their appearance and shouldn't be made to feel apologetic about it.” Listen to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s PORTER podcast episode
Cate Blanchett
“Everyone talks about the #MeToo movement as if it’s well and truly over, and I think, well, it didn’t really ever take root, to be honest. People were seeking to dismantle and discredit those voices that were only just beginning to come out from under the floorboards into the light. I find it quite distressing the way that it hasn’t taken root.” Read Cate Blanchett’s PORTER interview
Emma Grede
“My naivety was a superpower. The fact that I knew nothing was brilliant. Because if I’d known what I didn’t know, I would never have done it because I would have been too scared – but I just went for it. And I think when you have nothing to lose, that’s what happens.” Listen to Emma Grede’s PORTER podcast episode
Ruth Rogers
“We started [The River Café] with the values of what we wanted a restaurant to be. We wanted to be, of course, a place where [people] left happier than they came. And we wanted it to be a place where people who worked there wanted to come to work… where you could feel that you were being taught, and encouraged by hope rather than by fear.” Listen to Ruth Rogers’ PORTER podcast episode
Emily Blunt
“People in the public eye, we’ve all been increasingly trained to hold cards closer to our chest. And yet, I do feel in a lot of the people I work with and people I know, there’s this almost deep desire to be known, but there’s a fear of being known because of backlash. So it’s a tricky balance between really wanting people to know you, but being fearful of it, too.” Read Emily Blunt’s PORTER interview
America Ferrera
“I feel like we all have that capacity in whatever realm [we] work and live our lives to use our talents and whatever sphere of influence – whether that’s your family, your community, your neighbors – to make things better for ourselves and for other people. And I also believe so deeply in the role that art and storytelling play in that.” Listen to America Ferrera’s PORTER podcast episode
Adwoa Aboah
“Taking the plunge [into acting] was a really uncomfortable change for me because I had to withdraw ego from my own perspective, to move from fashion into this career that I’m not known for.” Read Adwoa Aboah’s PORTER interview
Emily Ratajkowski
“Everything by design in the industry is built to make women competitive and to make us not talk to each other… One of the things that I love about our friendship [with Adwoa Aboah], and where we started to build trust with each other, was by talking about our experiences within the industry and having this transparency around money and our agents. I want that to be the norm.” Read Emily Ratajkowski’s PORTER interview
Rebecca F. Kuang
“I’m just not that interested in how people talk about me on the internet, and I’m not interested in being famous. I think being too interested in your own fame can be devastating to any kind of creative, but especially [to] a writer, because a writer’s job is to write about others with empathy and curiosity.” Listen to Rebecca F. Kuang’s PORTER podcast episode
Lina Nielsen
“When I was in hospital for the symptoms that I had, I was in the pediatric ward, which is crazy, because a lot of people think about MS and think it’s an old person’s condition, but actually I was just about to turn 18, so I was still treated like a child. […] I was way too young to hear news like that, so it was a difficult process, but what helped me accept my diagnosis, even more so now into my late twenties, is speaking about it, and that’s so powerful.” Listen to Lina Nielsen’s PORTER podcast episode
Ambika Mod
“I take my work very seriously, but I don’t take myself very seriously… Setting boundaries and remembering I don’t owe anyone anything is important.” Read Ambika Mod’s PORTER interview
Rosamund Pike
“One of the main driving forces of life is passion. And I think you’re lucky if you find your passion, which I did, from very small. I loved people. I liked watching people, listening to people, working out why people were different from one another, and how I could make myself different, to embody those people.” Read Rosamund Pike’s PORTER interview
Natalie Portman
“I do feel like working as a child was an amazing experience for me – and I was very lucky that I was not harmed… [But] so many kids are harmed. And there are aspects of being publicly known and publicly seen as a kid… that turn you into an adult in a certain way. You become a woman in people’s eyes when you’re on screen.” Read Natalie Portman’s PORTER interview
Halina Reijn
“[Gen Z] are growing up in a very, very, very challenging environment and world, but their ideas around identity are very refreshing to me. They are trying to be their authentic selves more and they seem to judge each other less on a puritanical, suppressed level that you saw in my generation.” Listen to Halina Reijn’s PORTER podcast episode
Amelia Dimoldenberg
“I feel like I’m more interested in just being myself… And I think I’m finding that in my work, too. [With Chicken Shop Date] it’s always been like a heightened version of myself, and I feel more and more that I just want to be me.” Read Amelia Dimoldenberg’s PORTER interview
Recho Omondi
“I’m a big failer. I like to just fail and just try things on my own. So I got started failing and I think what I realized is that it was so hard to build a brand, or at least to the scale that I had aspired to.” Listen to Recho Omondi’s PORTER podcast episode
Gillian Anderson
“Right at the apex of Me Too and Time’s Up, I feel like there was some real structural and progressive change that was being made both in front of and behind the camera. [But] things reversed, and conversations reversed, and so we need to keep putting one foot in front of the other and be louder and more vocal and proactive than perhaps ever before, in order to move the conversation forward.” Listen to Gillian Anderson’s PORTER podcast episode
Coco Gauff
“Seeing so much success and excitement in and around women’s sport has inspired me – and knowing that my hard work can open doors for others motivates me to keep pushing.” Read Coco Gauff’s PORTER interview
Torrey Peters
“I’m very proud of my book [Stag Dance] on its merits and I love talking to readers, but I’m no longer naïve as to the existence of brutal bigots, and unfortunately, brutal bigots aren’t naïve as to the existence of me. I think that perhaps historians will mark 2025 as the actual end of the 20th century… While the manner of this fall may be terrifying and depressing, it also brings the ripest opportunity to build something new or needed that I have seen in all of the time I have occupied this Earth.” Read Torrey Peters’ PORTER interview