Lee Grant Quotes

In Hollywood, you play a mom, and the next thing you know, you're on 'The Golden Girls.' They age you so fast.

The sad truth for American actors is that they really have no control whatsoever over the material that they get, or can do, particularly actresses. And if you're over 40 and you're an actress, forget it.

Women are usually only interesting to studio executives when they are fecund, between the ages of 15 and 30. I decided to get through the really tough patch, around 50, by just cutting my price and playing ten years older. I didn't want to have to wait until I was an old lady to play one.

There is this thing in America where actresses reach 40 and go mad. The film industry wants all these young people.

Film roles really did start to dry up when I got into my 40s.

Suddenly you're the mom, or you go from ... You're not an ingénue, you don't want to play an ingénue, but it's like that line in The First Wives Club [1996]: "There are only three ages for women in Hollywood: babe, district attorney, and Driving Miss Daisy."

Hollywood is not good when it comes to age.

I'm not one of those actors who lies about their age.

It's not just in Hollywood that women run the risk of being passed by once they reach 50. It happens in real life, too.

There are fewer and fewer new roles for actresses as they get older. And that's not right.

Age is just a number. Unless, that is, you live in Hollywood, where there's this notion that if you haven't hit it big by your 20s, you may as well hit the road.

I mention my age because I find people in this country - women, not men, of course - women are so troubled by their age. There's a culture of youth, and it's a phony culture.

Old people are scary. And I have to face it. I am old and I am scary.

I never wanted to be a bombshell; I wanted to be an actor. I would much prefer to be a woman than a man, but if I was a dude, maybe I'd have Johnny Depp's island because women in this industry after a certain age definitely don't get to do 'Pirates of the Caribbean.'

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 like women are asked their age more than men.

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

It's hard to get older as an actress. You see a lot of people, especially in L.A., chasing youth.

I've been blacklisted in Hollywood.

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.

Hollywood stops hiring their star leading ladies when they turn 40. It's very defeating.

I was scared to say I was in my 40s because at that point, it sounded really old, and to out myself as a middle-aged human - I felt very awkward about it.

God bless Hollywood and all that it stands for, but, you know, people tend to peak in their 40s, and then it's all downhill from there.

I am China, pronounced as Chee-na. And I think it's time the world lets older women age gracefully.

You'll find people who rib you about their age are petrified about getting old. It doesn't bother me.