Amy Irving Quotes

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

There's some truth that roles for older women are harder to come by, but it's wrong for actors to monopolise the ageist thing.

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

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.

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

Hollywood is not good when it comes to age.

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

When you're a woman in your 40s, it's not the best time to do films, because there really aren't that many roles. Then you reach 50 and there are more roles again. Mother parts.

Women over 35 have great stories, and the actresses are there, but you can't get the movies made.

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.

Yeah I'm thirty-six, but on the show I'm thirty-two. Nobody wants to watch a thirty-six year old woman, so they decided to make me thirty-two. Much more appealing somehow.

Soaps are one of the few areas on TV that really embrace older women. In drama, there's this ridiculous invisibility for women between the ages of 40 and 60. Unless you're old enough to play a grandmother, there just aren't the roles.

It's been hard in entertainment as a 45-year-old woman to find jobs. They get fewer and far between if you're older, unless you're one of the few lucky ones who work constantly, like Meryl Streep.

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.

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.'

The movies that I did in the '80s were either good or bad, but I never was oppressed with any feeling - I mean, I thought it was ridiculous to play high school or college students when I was 30. But at the same time, that was really done then.

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.