Carrie-Anne Moss became a big celebrity in the late ‘90s because of The Matrix. She was already in her 30s at the time, and she ended scoring some good roles beyond the Matrix franchise, but I always wondered why she didn’t become a bigger deal. She’s pretty and talented and an underrated actress. I looked through her IMDB and I’m pleased that she works consistently in film and television, but again, she deserved to be a much bigger deal. Maybe she didn’t want that, or maybe Hollywood ageism struck her down and the only roles she got offered were for moms and grandmothers. Carrie-Anne spoke about ageism in casting with Justine Bateman, who is currently promoting her new book on the subject, Face: One Square Foot of Skin.
To promote her new book, Face: One Square Foot of Skin, a creative nonfiction tome about the ways society responds to women as they age, actress turned author and filmmaker Justine Bateman drafted friend Carrie-Anne Moss to moderate a conversation on behalf of New York’s 92nd Street Y. The wide-ranging chat saw Bateman open up on eschewing criticism over her naturally aging face (“I had to get rid of this idea that my face was something that was horrible and should be fixed,” she said) while the low-key Moss elaborated on life as an actress over 40 in Hollywood.
“I had heard that at 40 everything changed,” said Moss, who is now 53 and prepping for the release of The Matrix 4 in which she reprises her role as Trinity. “I didn’t believe in that because I don’t believe in just jumping on a thought system that I don’t really align with. But literally the day after my 40th birthday, I was reading a script that had come to me and I was talking to my manager about it. She was like, ‘Oh, no, no, no, it’s not that role [you’re reading for], it’s the grandmother. I may be exaggerating a bit, but it happened overnight. I went from being a girl to the mother to beyond the mother.”
Moss said that was a tough transition to process in part because male actors avoid the same trajectory. Moss said she never wanted to stay in the business if she felt like she’d have to change everything about herself in order to stay in it. “You don’t feel like you’ve aged much and suddenly you’re seeing yourself onscreen,” she said, adding that it’s “kind of brutal” witnessing the process. “I would look at these French and European actresses and they just had something about them that felt so confident in their own skin. I couldn’t wait to be that. I strive for that. It’s not easy being in this business. There’s a lot of external pressure.”
Moss praised Bateman for writing Face, which serves as a follow-up to her 2018 book that examines Hollywood and popular culture, Fame: The Hijacking of Reality. For Face, Bateman, 55, said she was compelled to take a deeper look at the unfair expectations placed on women, particularly women in the public eye like her, as they grow older. “I find it psychotic that we have leapfrogged any conversations that we should be cutting up our faces,” she said. “It’s become normalized. Time out, time out! This is not a fact. This is an idea that we can either pull in and make a belief or not. I’m like, f–k that.”
I think women should do what they want to do as far as plastic surgery and injectables and all that, just as I think women should be free to NOT do any of that as well. I hate that it’s an expectation in Hollywood, like American audiences would freak out at the sight of a wrinkled or naturally-aged face. If anything, the face work so many actresses get is more unnerving to see on-screen than their natural faces would be, and I’m talking about Nicole Kidman, Renee Zellweger, Courteney Cox and all of them. Anyway, I completely believe that Carrie-Anne was being offered grandmother roles soon after she turned 40. They never knew what to do with her! European filmmakers would have known what to do with her.
Photos courtesy of Getty, Avalon Red.
Yes, it’s the whole worship of minors as sexual objects. Kind of gross really. Just the continued prevalence of who’s at the top and making the decisions. They always claim that’s what the audiences want but the truth is that’s what they WANT the audiences to want so that’s all they give them. Its not like the audience gets that much of a choice most of the time. Its the same argument they give for not having female leads, directors etc or POC leads etc.
+1
“They always claim that’s what the audiences want but the truth is that’s what they WANT the audiences to want so that’s all they give them. Its not like the audience gets that much of a choice most of the time. Its the same argument they give for not having female leads, directors etc or POC leads etc.”
It makes me think back to stories I’d heard about Ike Perlmutter reign over Marvel, how everytime someone put forward a story that focused on a female lead, such as a Black Widow solo film to join Thor, Ironman, Captain America, he’d nix it saying “that’s not what people want”. He and his ilk even went so far that when they were planning merchandise tied into the Avengers and other Marvel films, they would limit the products focused on female or POC characters, doing things like making Black Widow toys the “chase” toys aka the limited production items that were hard to find … so, for example, if you got 20 McDonald’s happy meals you might get 4 Ironmen figures, 4 Captain America, 4 Thor, 4 Hulk 3 Hawkeye and 1 Black Widow.
Here’s an oldie but a goodie column from Linda Holmes, formerly of Television Without Pity, now at NPR, talking about the way Hollywood usually focuses on dudes and their stories at the expense of female characters. And so you have umpty dozen Matthew Mcconaughey, Adam Sandler, Armie Hammer films.
https://www.npr.org/series/pop-culture-happy-hour/2013/06/14/191568762/at-the-movies-the-women-are-gone/
Giving up the power to dictate people’s fantasy culture is one of the hardest things for non-woke folks to concede. It’s why so many SF/Fantasy fandoms are so venomous—and why Royal Family stans are so crazy. It’s a hill they are determined to die on because the stakes are so high. If you can make almost everyone feel inadequate, then provide the “cure,” it’s a win-win across the board for not a lot of effort.
I don’t understand ageism in Hollywood. How is it realistic for a 40 year old woman to be cast as a 65-70+ year old grandma? I don’t get it.
One thing I love about my country’s film industry is that someone her age would definitely be a lead in a rom-com and no one would think it trendsetting or weird.
Sorry, I need to correct anyone who says “ageism.” It’s not — it is misogyny. The idea that WOMEN (not men) need to be young and pretty in order to play any role in a movie. This “rule” does not apply to men. That’s discrimination based on gender, not age.
I remember when I watched Blow with Johnny Depp, and Rachel Griffiths was cast as his mother. He was 5 years older than her! They put her in fake gray hair. It was really very odd. I don’t know why they didn’t use a more age appropriate actress. It is a film where they age over time…but she was 33 years old when it was filmed. For most of the film her character was decades older than that.
Hollywood has a serious ageism problem. I don’t get why is inconceivable to some that women in their 40’s, 50’s and 60’s can still be sexy, be comfortable in their skin and have a love story without needing to add the trope of kids or grandkids. Carrie-Anne Moss was so hot in Jessica Jones that I was thirsting for her during that first season. Such a girl crush.
She was brilliant in Jessica Jones!
She was really great in Jessica Jones. Carrie-Anne is the type of actress that elevates whatever she is in. She has gravitas.
One of the thing I appreciate the most of non American productions (film/tv series) is how NORMAL people look: they have wrinkles, teeth that aren’t perfect, they are beautiful in a really “everyday” way.
I rarely watch any American TV shows or movies anymore (Schitts Creek being the only one I can think of) as I’m sick of everything being so fake.
Schitt’s Creek is Canadian!
Yes! It’s so nice to see actors who just look like people.
One of the reasons I love Brit TV. The acting is uniformly terrific—and that industry gives women of all ages roles they can either sink their teeth in or use to show their range.
As everyone else has said, ageism for women in Hollywood is just absurd and so damaging. And also dumb, because middle aged women are hot. Not hot for their age, but ….. just hot.
I recently watched the show “The Great” all about Catherine the Great and as funny and good as the show is, the real Catherine the Great was in her 40’s when she launched her coup and just how amazing would it have been to actually cast a 40-year old actress in a fun, juicy role like that? (My mind cast Selma Blair because she would’ve been campy, a little naive and idealistic, but forceful and devious and just delightful to watch with the characterization of Catherine.)
So yeah, can we also have more great roles for older women too?
The actress (Elle Fanning) is 23?? Even 33 would have been young, but at least closer to 40. Whoa… I’m honestly feeling more beautiful as I age, like my youthful prettiness is mellowing into something deeper. And I’m just a regular person relying on melanin, Cerave and Differin, but imagine if more wealthy actresses let themselves age naturally but used all the non-surgery, non-injectable options they have. We’d have such a different view of what’s “normal” for women’s faces.
Women cutting their faces or bodies in patriarchy is not freedom. Belief that these surgeries are a neutral personal choice shows just how powerful patriarchy is as an ideological force.
It’s truly sad as well. I think that this issue of women has been a problem since the beginning of Hollywood as well. It’s been a hundred years and they haven’t changed. It’s unacceptable to think that women aren’t marketable in their 40’ to their 80’s!! I feel bad for them if they want to work. It’s time they change the rules and bring women to the powerful positions so that women like Moss can act in characters that she wants to act in.
I watch so many non-American productions that you can really tell it’s a Hollywood thing, not an acting thing. The bbc productions and Australian or NZ productions have no problem casting women in their 40s and 50s without surgery and fillers and with imperfect bodies. It’s very refreshing having people look like the human beings I see around me every day.
That’s so weird to me. Unless the story was about a young mom who becomes young grandmother at 40, it doesn’t make sense.
I remember Jane Krakowski’s comment at an awards show: in the original “Vacation” movie, she played Chevy Chase’s niece. If the made the movie now, she would play his wife. If they made it in 5 years, she would play his mother.
While I do believe ageism is alive and kicking,
It’s also important perhaps to see the context of the role?
What I mean is, Kate Winslet is playing a Grand mother in her new tv show and it is not necessarily the depiction we have of a granny. Yet she is playing one, and will win awards for that.
Marissa Tomei por example, is now playing the hot aunt in Spider-Man and I believe she’s around the same age as Anne Moss give or take a few years less.
Yes, it is cruel, it’ll happen to us all but context is what matters.
There is no wall. Diane Lane, Jessica Lange, Ellen Burstyn, Jane Fonda, tons of gorgeous beautiful women well past the age of 50, 60, 70.