You’ve just started a production company in Hollywood with Reese Witherspoon and you have two massive films in pre-production that will go on to be nominated for Oscars. You’ve recently been diagnosed with a serious disease. And after years of fertility treatment and false starts, you’re pregnant with twins.

Welcome to the year Bruna Papendrea had in 2014. Intense, hectic and insane doesn’t quite do it justice. Bruna Papendrea could be described in so many ways with so many qualifiers – Australian, Woman etc – but you know, she’s actually just one of the Most Powerful PEOPLE in Hollywood. Full stop.

A photo posted by Pacific Standard (@pacificstandardfilms) on

May 16, 2016 at 1:49pm PDT

The best part (for me) is that she used to be my best friend in my late teens and early twenties before she moved overseas and we lost touch – and in doing this interview, we were reunited for the first time in like 20 years. That’s how this looked:

Afterwards, I wrote this on my Facebook page:

Today my heart was full. I saw Bruna Papandrea for the first time in maybe 20 years and it was like no time had passed since we were best friends in that madly-in-love way you have with girlfriends when you're young. God she's amazing. She was always my most fiesty, feminist friend and nothing has changed. It's no coincidence we both work to create content for women and help tell women's stories. She's now a member of the Academy and one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood. That was always going to happen. What a force. Truly, a woman's woman. Best laugh in the world and she uses it often. Love you, Bingo. xxxxxxxxx

Soon after our interview, news broke that Bruna and Reese had split and she would be leaving Pacific Standard.

Hear Bruna talk about Pacific Standard here:

Find out what she said about that, about going to the Oscars, what it's like to live in mad world (Hollywood) that puts mad pressure on women to look young and thin and beautiful at all times and at all ages, the way she manages her twins, her job and a debilitating illness, the extraordinary story of how she met her husband and the two women who left her totally starstruck.

You can just hear the love and excitement coming through my voice throughout our interview. And the pride! Bursting.

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