Marcia Gay Harden Quotes

If you're a lead actor, people are just waiting to say 'you're too old' or 'you're too unhip.' If you're a supporting actor, you can just work forever.

At about 40, the roles started slowing down. I started getting offers to play mothers and grandmothers.

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

In human years I am 29. In actress years I'm the ripe, promising age of 18 to 35. That's how it works here in Hollyweird.

It used to be that when an actress reached thirty, she was considered almost washed up.

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

Once you get into your 40s, you're no longer leading-lady age. Generally, those roles get offered to women in their 20s and 30s.

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

When women's parts are being written, they are more and more for under 30s who are nubile and beautiful. Actresses over 40 are finding very little happening.

I was comfortable in my thirties playing the romantic partner, the hero that saves the day, or the woman who is facing a world that revolves around younger kid actors.

When I was in my early twenties, parts would be written for women in their fifties, and I would get them. And now I'm in my early thirties, and I'm like, 'Why did that 24-year-old get that part?' I was that 24-year-old once. I can't be upset about it; it's the way things are.

Older actors can still play young, but it's harder for young actors to be able to play that age range.

I don't talk about how old I am because sometimes it can affect parts that you get in Hollywood. I don't believe that it's a necessary element. I feel that I'm a character, and I'm an actor. People focusing on my age instead of the role I'm playing can be a hindrance.

Hollywood is not good when it comes to age.

But I've always believed that Christine Cagney shouldn't be played past a certain age.

My career seems to have worked out OK, especially since I turned 40. I've always had a character part, mind you - I've never played the princess. But if you're used to doing that, it must be soul-destroying to hit 40 and suddenly find there's nothing for you to do.

I was always a character actress, even when I was an ingenue. But as you age, people know what to do with you, and you're not quite as dependent on maintaining leading-lady beauty.

Character roles definitely age better than your ingenues. You don't get to keep doing that.

I'm not in the movie business anymore, and hardly any 70 year olds are. I always ask the producers: 'Are there no 70-year old vampires?' Apparently there are not - or even zombies for that matter. I guess they all get eaten.

I don't reflect on sort of the age of the roles that I get. It's usually just what plays into what's believable - 'Am I believable at this age?'

In Hollywood, you play a mom and instantly, you've got osteoporosis.

You have to ask yourself if you want to be the kind of actress who's interesting, or the kind of actress who's meant to play the pretty-but-uninteresting wife of a chubby guy on a network sitcom.

I played teen roles until high definition came out, and I could never understand it. I would go in for adult roles and be older than many of the people auditioning, but they'd cast the girl without a line on her face.

The fact of the matter is that we're all aging, and there's this stigma that older actresses don't work as much as younger actresses, and I don't think that's true anymore.

There is no question that the older you get, the fewer good roles there are.