Lori Petty Quotes

It's more acceptable for guys to get old and craggy and become wonderful character actors as they get older, but women aren't allowed to get old and craggy in the same way.

When men age, their love interests get younger. It doesn't stop them from doing different genres of stuff. As women age in film, you know, they go from the woman in charge to the mother, the grandmother... off a cliff somewhere.

Hindi film heroes never age but Hindi film heroines age fast.

It's absurd: half the movie audience are women, but Hollywood bosses are still aiming for men who are 20.

It's difficult for a young girl like me. Because there's a certain time for young actresses, which is like a really juicy period when all the parts are love interests and young heroines. Of course, there's always work for men whatever age they are.

I understand, as the young, attractive woman in film, that there's always going to be people seeking out extra salacious things for you to do.

I haven't had a lot of experience with glamour. I've never had to mask myself, as many now not-so-young actresses have had to do. Female actors in that regard have a different lot in life than male actors.

It is not easy to grow old in this business, when you are a woman above all, in the cinema.

Men are able to sustain a career into their 50s and 60s and still present themselves as sex symbols. With women, on the other hand, people say, 'Why doesn't she retire?'

There aren't many roles that are interesting if you're a 40-year-old woman, unless you're Julia Roberts or Cate Blanchett.

Men are allowed to get older and women are not.

I've never found it made the slightest difference being a woman - though there is a sort of feeling that as you get older you're not so interesting.

I have nothing against younger women and older men on screen. What is sad is that so many women over 40 who have so much to give aren't being considered to play opposite men their own age or younger.

I feel very protective of younger actresses, because it was so hard for me in the business.

I took my acting very seriously. I did over 40 films, and naturally, some of them were called B-movies because the woman was at the top of the billing. Women couldn't star in their own movies.

Men are boys for such a long time and really don't start getting the great roles until they're in their mid-thirties. But then they've got a long time to do them, whereas for women, it's all about playing younger and younger and younger.

Michelle Pfeiffer hasn't been finding a lot of work recently because she doesn't like what a woman her age is offered. That's a real double standard. You get Sean Connery, who gets older and older, still playing opposite young ladies, but it doesn't work the other way around.

Women become invisible as they age; men become impotent.

What's worse in Hollywood, being handicapped or being a woman over 50?

There's still this idea that women are over by the time they are 40, so that they can't play the love interest opposite a 50-year-old man. George Clooney is 52, but he's always on the arm of a thirt-something actress. He gets Vera Farmiga. You don't get a 50-year-old woman on the arm of a 30-year-old guy.

For any female actor, the age between 35 to 45 is treacherous. Filmmakers tell me, I am at that awkward age. No parts are written for women in this age bracket, while men at that age flourish and have great careers.

I have been very fortunate that the Punjabi audience connected with me so well. Otherwise female actors are not repeated much in this industry.

When you're asking about roles for men and women, men certainly have a longer shelf life. Men can play the sexy lead for 20 years longer than we can.

Hollywood is sexist and age-ist, and that covers all the bases, I guess.

If you are a 19-year-old woman, there are very specific things that directors and the people in positions of power in the industry - who tend to be older men - are going to want you to be and do. They are not going to want some chatty, difficult, slightly spoilt girl.