She later found out that they had actually said she was “too old” for the role. For context, she was 28 at the time, and Leonardo Dicaprio (who played the husband, Jordan) was 39. She said that women don’t get cast much, particularly as the love interest, past 40 or 50 because the men want to come across as younger. “When I was in my early twenties, parts would be written for women in their fifties and I would get them. And now I’m in my thirties and I’m like, ‘Why did that 24-year-old get that part?’ She went on to highlight that the 57-year-old’s actual wife was at least 50 and that the fictional couple was supposed to have an 18-year-old child… Meaning that the casting team thought that 25 was unrealistic and too old to have a child? In an interview, she said: “When I was 35, I said that they’d have to exhume somebody to play my leading man.” She also revealed that she was once told she was too old to play the love interest of Hugh Grant in Sense and Sensibility, despite him being only a couple of years younger than her. Luckily the director disagreed and she went on to win a plethora of awards for her role. Tippi also talked about the lack of roles for older women due to the lack of screenplays with older women characters: “They don’t really find women who are getting older to be fascinating enough to make screenplays about. I mean, they just don’t write those anymore.” “I’ve just been told everything from ‘Female-driven sitcoms don’t make as much money as male-driven sit-coms…I’ve had network executives tell me ‘We’re just not considering females at this time.’ I would be hearing ‘They like you, they’ve just decided to go younger.’” On turning 40, she said in an interview that, even though she was actually looking forward to it, she knew what it meant for her career: “I was not 25 anymore and everybody knew that. So I was no longer valuable.” “It’s a cruel thing our society does to women,” “To tell them they’ve failed for a process that’s totally normal and natural.” Liv actually described the industry’s ageism and sexism by the fact that despite not yet being 40 (at the time) the only roles available were a wife or a girlfriend, as opposed to the interesting roles that younger women in Hollywood were being offered. Her speech at the 2018 Actors Guild Awards praised women in Hollywood, saying: “Hollywood’s current TV and film stars over 40 have “proven” that they are “powerful”.” In 2016, Meryl said: “I remember as I was hovering around 40, I thought each movie would be my last, really,” “All the evidence of other 40-year-old women at that time – this is 27 years ago – would lead you to believe it was over.” And Meryl, like Nicole, is continuing to aid the careers of women into their 40s in Hollywood by supporting The Writers Lab, a programme aiming to achieve parity for women screenwriters, which would bring with it stronger roles for women of all ages.
