Kate McKinnon has the perfect reason for loving her "ugly" Ghostbusters jumpsuit

While presenting Feig with the Athena Film festival’s Leading Man Award, McKinnon said that Feig, who has also directed Bridesmaids, Spy, and The Heat, had avoided Hollywood's ordinary way of showing women on-screen — not least because he put the four female stars in "ugly" jumpsuits, like those worn by the original male cast.

"We filmed [Ghostbusters] in Boston over the summer and the best part of the summer was getting to wear a jumpsuit," she said in a transcript provided by Vulture. "I wore pants the whole time and my hair was up the whole time. Not one hair on my neck … It sounds like a small thing that I got to wear pants and have my hair up, but it’s actually a really big thing because we were playing scientists. Women playing scientists wearing jumpsuits, kind of ugly jumpsuits. And they made dolls of this! That has never happened! … No cleavage. Dolls."

She added: "Paul would sometimes release pictures of how things were going, the costumes or whatever. And we’d get a wonderful email from him whenever someone would tweet back a picture of their daughter rocking a Ghostbusters jumpsuit and a proton pack, which happened a lot. It’s sweet and it’s cute but it’s also actually quite new and quite huge. This morning, I Googled ‘girls Halloween costume,’ and I can tell you with scientific certainty that those jumpsuits will be the only girls' Halloween costumes available this October that include pants."

McKinnon, who stars in the Ghostbusters reboot alongside Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig and Leslie Jones also added said that Feig was a rarity in Hollywood.

"Paul has let women be tough cops, CIA operatives, and lovable drunken flailing losers...by building stories around female protagonists who are striving not for romance but simply to become their best selves, he has permanently changed the game for us all."