Except in some rare exceptions, aging sucks no matter what profession you are in. The mind works better and just as fast as at 30 but it just seems like the packaging doesn’t follow. Now add on to that that this profession is one which involves the factor of beauty, youth and health, and you have yourself a dilemma.
Its been studied by different advertisement agencies that the age demographics most prone to watch television is that between 18 and 40. That means that as most people like to see stories about people like themselves, shows are more likely to be about a group of people in this age zone, instead of one on a geriatrics. Its cruel, but its true.
In film there may be some more leeway to this rule but not too much. And worst of all, is they will usually “age” a woman in their late 40′s to play the character in her 60s. Obviously to the industry its better if the 50 year old can age gracefully too. And lets not get started on the problem of marketing. A new found talent in his 20s can have a “Very promising” career worth investing in. Whereas a man in a similar position of talent in his 50s isn’t.
With all this said, its not easy to age in front of a camera. Being an actor plays the need to be “beautiful” or at least young n most occasions, and actors aging find it hard to cope. What do you do? There is no one answer, with hard work, lots of exposure, a good management team, its still possible to have the career most actors dream of, even a few decades later. But there is a few things you shouldn’t do: Try too hard to look younger.
Take care of yourself and PREVENT bad aging? YES. But if you are 49, look 49, there’s nothing worse than seeing you dress like a 15 year old, act like one, or get operated to look like one. At any age, you need to embrace your appearance. Some actors look way beyond their years and play more mature parts, and others are lucky enough to look younger for longer. But whatever your case, embrace how you look. No-one cares if you are 50 if you can play a 35 year old, or if you are really 15 but don’t look a day under 24. In this business reality isn’t what counts as you know. So play up whatever you have to offer. And believe that there is nothing better than aging gracefully…in this one, or any other profession. Look at Hellen Mirren, or Meryl Streep, Harrison Ford and Stallone?? (actually, ignore this last one. There was nothing graceful about his last movie.). All of us would love to have any of their brilliant careers AND futures.
I’m 5’4, 110 pounds, I consider myself a pretty woman, well I think I have no trouble finding guys, have not much experience as an actress, just at school and in the theater workshop at the university where I worked on a few works of plays. I did not studied acting for fear of unemployment. After college I married and my life took a different direction from my last work in theater has been 10 years. In all these years and tried to ignore the dream of becoming an actress to not think about that and to do other things but a year ago I had an accident that I realized what the meaning of my life, at that moment when I thought I would die I realized I had not done in life that I wanted to do, that is to act and write but now I am 32 years old and not know if it’s TOO late to start over, what you think?