Age-Related Barriers Quotes

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 want the young guys to say, 'How old is this guy that's blocking me every play?'

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 was 24 when I was blacklisted. I was 36 when I got off the blacklist. How much of a life does an actress have in L.A. past 25? ... I was really scared of having producers know that I was on my way to 40.

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

I think if you give in and accept society's stereotypes, then you start thinking, 'I cannot dance till late at night because I'm 70.'

If you're sixty-something, pushing 70, the chances of you getting a tremendously fascinating part in the movies are very low, as to be almost negligible, or even in television. But in the theatre, there are still things to do, very interesting, very profound things.

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

This society is not 'user-friendly' for older people.

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.

When I started in the business years ago, people would always say, 'You better get as much work as you can now, because once you get over 40, it's over.'

I've never had to deal with ageism - so far - in my career; I have been able to navigate my career and getting older and the roles and opportunities that have come to me.

I thought that maybe it is not so much, as he seems to think, that the world loses interest in female performers after they hit a certain age, than the performers lose interest in the world.

I can't think of anyone who has done anything remotely useful after the age of 80.

I don't like to tell my age. Not because of vanity, but because in 10 years when I look 37, producers will think I'm too old for some parts.

The odds are not in your favor the older you get, especially if you're a woman in this business.

I was playing 40-year-old women when I was 20. I didn't get considered for ingenue roles.

I honestly don't think you're taken seriously until you're 30. Any ideas I've ever taken to the BBC, they've told me I wasn't ready for it.

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

You don't really want nonagenarians as heads of organisations which are trying to do something useful.

I'm 40 next year and I'm very well aware that where I am now, it becomes a bit of a wilderness for actresses.

Unless an age too late, or cold Climate, or years, damp my intended wing.

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

I would love to do '24' until I was 60, but I don't think anybody would accept it.

The first quarter-century of your life was doubtless lived under the cloud of being too young for things, while the last quarter-century would normally be shadowed by the still darker cloud of being too old for them; and between those two clouds, what small and narrow sunlight illumines a human lifetime!