Why Lily James 'Swiped' right on telling Whitney Wolfe Herd's story

TORONTO – Dating apps have become an everyday part of our online lives, and Lily James swiped right on telling the story of a woman significant in their rise.

In director Rachel Lee Goldenberg's biopic “Swiped” (streaming now on Hulu), the British actress stars as Whitney Wolfe Herd, who co-founded Tinder and became the youngest female self-made billionaire. After exiting the company in 2014, she sued for sexual harassment and discrimination, and went on to create the female-forward app Bumble.

Once familiar with Wolfe’s history, James also wanted to be a creative force behind the scenes as a producer on the movie. “Given what it's about and this kind of formidable entrepreneur, it felt like the right moment to be really involved from beginning to end,” she says.

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She approached the part the same way she has other true-life roles, like Pamela Anderson in “Pam & Tommy,” or even fictional characters: “I am committed to truth and I'll work hard and bring my own self every time with an open heart and integrity,” James says. But playing Whitney was tricky in that, because of non-disclosure agreements, the real Wolfe couldn’t be involved. “I just spent so long watching interviews, reading articles, garnering as much possible information as I could, almost like a kind of detective.”

Some aspects of Wolfe’s story really spoke to James, especially Wolfe’s resilience and courage in the face of ugly misogyny and bullying tech bros.

“For a lot of people, the gravity of what she experienced, it might cripple them,” James say. “She channeled that into something good. She saw a problem and she fixed it, and she made that her purpose with creating Bumble. So she turned that toxicity into something that can actually help others and herself: to make the internet safer for women, to put women in the driver's seat, to create an app that was safe.”

James also found it fascinating to explore gender politics and being a woman in a male-dominated world, as well as “the ripple effect and ways in which women are silenced, whether it's via NDAs or not getting the credit you deserve for your contributions,” she says. “That to me feels like an important subject. I was excited to offer up some work that provokes a conversation around those themes.”

The actress has been told by women who’ve seen it that “Swiped” struck a chord with them as it did with her. James also understands that the movie could have an impact on a lot of viewers since Wolfe’s experience echoes across a number of industries.

“What's beautiful about this story is that we start when she leaves college and there's just all this enthusiasm and youthful energy,” James says. “These kids are getting together right at the precipice when these apps were exploding in the tech world, just zooming forward like a rocket ship. There's so much joy and this entrepreneurial spirit and kind of lust.

“Obviously then we track these highs and lows because some parts of this were really painful to explore and shoot, and rightly so, but I'm so grateful that we end somewhere triumphant in honoring that legacy.”