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.
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.
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.
Why do we insist women are cast 10 years younger than the role they're playing? Men don't know what a 30-year-old is supposed to look like because on TV she's always 20.
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.
It's not any desire on my part to start playing dads, but it's a convention of drama. If you don't get the parts of young people going out to nightclubs, you have to play their fathers.
When I first met Sam Mendes, I was a bit confused and said to him, 'I'm 50 years old. What am I going to do at 50 in a Bond film?'
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.
