People now tell me it's a good thing I stayed away from teen films. Well, it wasn't my choice. I wasn't hired.
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.
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.
As a female actress - I've been doing this since I was a teenager - I often got approached with the ingenue roles: naive and wide-eyed and childlike.
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.
Certain type of actresses get younger instead of older. I always say, 'Only ingenues age.'
Hollywood is not good when it comes to age.
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.
