I finally saw The Girl Who Played with Fire yesterday. This is Lena Endre, the actress who plays Erika Berger in the series. She’s obviously a beautiful woman, but what’s quite striking about her is that, unlike almost every American actress around her age (she’s 55), she doesn’t appear to have had a half dozen plastic surgery procedures and a quart of botox injections.
harlana
What an ironic post, considering the preceding “oldster” wars that just took place on this blog. :D
LGRooney
From Steve Martin’s LA Story:
Telemacher: Sandee, your breasts feel weird.
Sandee: Oh, that’s ’cause they’re real.
rhinoman
It’s also an apt description of both stars of “The Kids Are All Right”. Julianne Moore and Annette Bening are older, unmodified and gorgeous.
It is a bit depressing that this is so unusual.
roshan
Milf!
Southern Beale
…unlike almost every American actress around her age (she’s 55), she doesn’t appear to have had a half dozen plastic surgery procedures and a quart of botox injections.
How would you even know? Few American actresses of that age are allowed anywhere near a movie production. There’s Susan Sarandon, Sigourney Weaver, Diane Keaton and … ? And those 3 actresses haven’t had plastic surgery (though a friend of mine who does movie marketing tells me the studios insist on photoshopping the shit out of their publicity pics …)
R-Jud
It’s always refreshing to see an older actress in a role, period. It’s like we ladies become invisible after 35.
There’s gonna be a Hollywood remake, naturally. I believe Robin Wright (a/k/a Princess Buttercup), who’s about 45, will be playing this lady’s role.
She has also aged more gracefully than most– she certainly looks good for someone who willingly put up with Sean Penn for all those years.
SouthernBeale: “a friend of mine who does movie marketing tells me the studios insist on photoshopping the shit out of their publicity pics”
I think this is WHY the cosmetic interventions have gotten so crazy, actually, along with the extreme dieting. When everything’s retouched so that nobody has pores or more than 3% visible bodyfat anymore, it must upset the casting directors when an actress walks through the door and doesn’t look like the shiny plastic person in her latest portrait in Vanity Fair. Also: Meryl Streep, Helen Mirren. Two more.
mclaren
What’s even weirder is that a woman over 40 appears in a movie. In American films, women over 40 get purged. Nowadays there’s an incerdibly narrow age range allowed in U.S. movies. American films inhabit a bizarre universe where everyone is between the ages of 12 and 35. They’re all good looking. No one is bald or fat or plain-looking, no one is older than 35, no one is really young.
One of the big reasons I stopped going to American movies years ago. American movies are now a disneyworld full of young pretty people. Once upon a time, you had character actors. And actors over 35. And actors under 12. No more. Now it’s all this tiny slice of the demographic and they all look they stepped off the cover of Tiger Beat magazine.
This eliminates so many of the characters and so many of the kinds of roles that used to make films interesting that there’s nothing left to watch onscreen. It’s all Logan’s Run. Hollywood has turned into Logan’s fucking Run.
Films like The Godfather could not be made today. Main character is an oooooooooooooold guy, oooohhh, ooohhhh, he’s so ooooooooooooooooold.
Films like Flight of the Phoenix could not be made today. Oooooohhh, ooooohhh, Jimmy Stewart has whiskers, and he’s oooooooooooooold, he’s really ooooooooold.
Films like Ikiru could never be made today. Central character’s some shriveled bureaucrat, he ‘s not pretty, he’s not glamorous, oooohhh, ooooohh, get him off the screen!
Dustin Hoffman could never become a star today. Not pretty enough. Gene Hackman could never become a star today. Not glamorous enough. Humphrey Bogart wouldn’t even survive a first call audition today, not handsome enough, not young enough.
Pathetic.
lawguy
Interesting point. On the other hand they are awsome movies even if you’ve read the books.
R-Jud
@mclaren:
Audrey Hepburn probably wouldn’t become a star today. That nose is a little too long, and those are awfully big eyebrows, and– yeesh– only a 34A? You need to be at least a C cup in this town, sister.
Raenelle
What’s your point? Do you object to make-up? High heels? Bras? Do you think it’s icky when women choose fashions that cloak their defects? Jesus fucking christ. Now we have to be embarrassed about trying to look good, “even at 55.”
stuckinred
I dunno, Philip Seymour Hoffman and William Macy would seem to blow this theory of pretty boy male stars away don’t ya think?
Cat Lady
@Southern Beale:
I met a woman who produced Victoria’s Secret commercials back when the supermodels had the wings and were lifted off the ground. She said each model spent minimum of 4 hours getting hair and makeup done, and not one of them looks like they look in the ads. Tyra Banks’ contract forbid any pictures of her taken from behind. Not one image of a model or actress seen in a magazine represents reality. No wonder everyone’s gone crazy.
JGabriel
Paul Giamatti could never become …
Oh, wait.
.
flukebucket
I would have expected blue hair.
jwb
@mclaren: Nice rant! (And I mean that in a good way.)
Emma
McLaren: Ditto. I wait to see movies either in Netflix or Directv, if at all. Why bother?
harlana
As an old movie fanatic, I have to disagree that things are much different now than back in the day. The incredibly successful Joan Crawford was dumped by MGM after she started aging, making a miraculous comeback in “Mildred Pierce.” Just off the top of my head I can think of two actresses who survived aging and continued making movies until their deaths. Joan Crawford and Bette Davis (interestingly, rivals in real life). Olivia deHavilland, to a lesser degree, who actually became more beautiful with age.
harlana
I must agree, however, that beauty standards for movie men and women have become absolutely unrealistic and boring as hell. Someone mentioned Audrey Hepburn, a wonderful example of how “different” can be interesting and fascinatingly beautiful. Almost none of the old stars would be cast today as they were, back when plastic surgery was nominal.
adolphus
There will always be exceptions, especially for VERY talented people and mostly for men. But the bar is rising higher all the time. But go back and look at TV shows and movies from the 70’s. People were normal looking. Can you really imagine that if Taxi or Barney Miller were cast today Hal Linden, Danny DeVito, Judd Hirsch, Jack Soo, etc would ever get hired? (DeVito maybe, there will always been room for short, pudgy people as who’s physical appearance is a metaphor for evil)
Look at the old and new casts of Hawai’i Five-O. The old one had middle-aged men and pudgy cops who were good at their job. The new one is nothing but pretty young people in all roles.
SiubhanDuinne
Annette Bening can definitely do the made-up, tightly-wrapped, beautifully coiffed movie star (“Being Julia”), but she’s also unafraid to look as unglam as a woman could (“The Kids Are All Right”). I believe she’s about 60. Fine actor, too, who’s been in some absolute dogs of movies, no offence to dogs.
John S.
Yeah, non-beautiful people could never have careers these days! I mean Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill are just sooooo dreamy!
brent
@mclaren:
I would say that the general sentiment here is probably more true concerning the exclusion of women more than men but in either case, its not quite as severe as you make it out to be. Without even giving it much thought, I can think of quite a few popular movies with lead actors in their mid to late 40s (Sandra Bullock, Brad Pitt, Jodie Foster) some in the 50s (Michelle Pfeiffer, John Travolta) and even some in their 60s (Sam Jackson, Sly Stallone, Sigourney Weaver). Not to mention the resurgent careers of some octogenarians like Ed Asner and Betty White. That is not to dispute that Hollywood has a tremendous bias toward youth but without doing a detailed statistical analysis, I doubt that is much different than it has ever been. It might be skewed slightly younger now but really not by much. There have always been roles for few older actors and most roles are written for attractive characters in their 30s.
mistermix
@mclaren: Part of this is that teenagers/young adults are the target audience for movies since they are willing to tolerate the multiplexes to see them. That’s why we have so many PG-13 movies, which allow one “fuck” and one slight glimpse of nipple.
Tancrudo
On the other hand, the woman cast as Lisbeth Salander, Noomi Rapace, is too old for the role. She was 30 when the film was shot, and in the movie is obviously not in her early 20s, as Salander is in the book. Rapace is also too tall and too muscled. It really changes the plot to have Salander be a muscly, average height 30-year old.
stuckinred
@brent: I think whining about it is really constructive!
Katherine Hunter
i have read and listened to the all three of the Salander Trilogy / i do not expect to see the films as i am not a movie fan / i do like the looks of this actress as Erica Berger ! and will keep her mind when i listen again some day / the joy of listening is that the language and the nuance is more fascinating than looking at phony images / well, for me anyway
WereBear
And then there’s the fourth Indiana Jones movie, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, wherein Karen Allen is never, ever, ever, shot full face or lets the camera even linger longer than a nanosecond. If they were that paranoid they should have just CG’d her and be done with it.
After all, Harrison Ford is showing the mileage too; it’s just different for men.
noncarborundum
@SiubhanDuinne:
Bening’s not quite 60 – she was born in 1958. Julianne Moore, her co-star in Kids, was born in 1960. Neither one of them appears to be face-lifted or botoxed. (Obviously that movie couldn’t be made today.)
eemom
Recently I saw Oliver Stone’s “W” on one of the movie channels. Most of the actors bore a passable resemblance to their characters, except for Ellen Burstyn, who was absurdly cast as Barbara Bush. I thought it was hilarious that they couldn’t find an actress anywhere near ugly enough to play that part.
stuckinred
@eemom: You asked about Eureka. It got very intense with us via email. Wish I could meet him in person.
WereBear
@Tancrudo: It does! The waifish quality was part of the character; and her actions.
bemused
@LGRooney:
Heh. I don’t remember much of that movie but I’ve never forgotten that part. Hilarious.
JWL
I think I understand.
You’re implying Endre is a Swedish Sarah Palin, albeit one possessed of true beauty, talent, and brains.
Lucky for her she’s European. She’d never succeed in America.
jomo
Showtime has a stable of fabulous crazy strong older women in their original series. Maybe not as old as the woman in the picture but between Toni Colette, Edie Falco, Mary Louise Parker and now Laura Linney – I don’t think there is a better stable of actresses out there anywhere. I swear I’m not an ad – just a fan.
Alice Blue
Then there’s Jennifer Anniston. I don’t know what or who she’s doing, but she’s 40-ish and still cranking out those mediocre rom-coms.
eemom
@stuckinred:
wow.
I take it if you did meet him in person, you would greet him with something other than a handshake. : )
Maybe we oughta start a Support Group for FDL Survivors.
AxelFoley
@roshan:
Indeed.
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren:
@jomo:
Once you get past Transformers, Twilight, and other summer blockbusters designed to pack teens and tweens into movie theaters during vacations, there are a lot of movies with actors of both sexes who are in their late 30s and beyond.
As far as less than perfect appearing actors go. people have already noted Paul Giamatti, Seth Rogan, and others. I think if you go back a look at the movies that came out in the same year as The Godfather, you find a number of fluff movies with pretty people. Those movies faded from memory. The fluff of today sticks in one’s mind because it is out there today. It will fade in time and only the great movies will be remembered (perhaps the truly awful as well). People do the same thing with music.
dms
@harlana:
Well, she’s Swedish, so she apparently hasn’t lost her shit. Therefore, we’re allowed to respect her.
Chad N Freude
@Tancrudo: I don’t agree. While Rapace does not match Salander’s physical characteristics from the books, I think she has captured the character about as well as anyone can, and I had no problem with her portrayal.
And Lena Endre can come onto my lawn any time she wants.
Tom Levenson
(A) Katherine Hepburn, for an actress who stayed gorgeous and great till genuinely old age.
(B) I believe the term starlet was used to describe the forgettable beauties of times past. Which is to suggest that we always live in the worst of times.
It is certainly true, though, that then and now, male actors had much longer shelf lives in headline, studio movies than female ones. To my jaundiced eyes, though, what you see now is male roles catching up to female ones, in that it’s harder and harder to cast less than perfection in a blockbuster. The experiment in progress? Let’s see what happens to George Clooney over the next ten to fifteen years…
Laura Clawson
Also fascinating because in the books, Blomkvist is in his early 40s and Berger was his classmate. Is she specified as older than him? I don’t remember about that, but if not, then they actually cast the role older than written, which is also on the rare side.
I’d tag State of Play as an exception on American movies. The thing that struck me most about that movie was that it has three main women in it: Rachel McAdams, Robin Wright, and Helen Mirren. And they are all filmed as beautiful women — great lighting and angles and clothes — but allowed to be three distinctly different ages without apology.
AxelFoley
Thinking on this, there are plenty of women in entertainment who are just drop dead gorgeous all throughout their lives.
Off the top of my head: Jacklyn Smith (my favorite Angel), Tina Turner and Sophia Loren.
And there are some who just got more beautiful with age. Elizabeth Perkins, IMO, is hotter now than when she first appeared in the ’80s in films like Big and …About Last Night.
Chad N Freude
@Tom Levenson: Probably pretty much what happened to Burt Lancaster. Big box office draw right up to the day he died.
Chad N Freude
Helen Mirren is another age-independent ultra-hottie who can come onto my lawn. I first became aware of her in the 70s, and I have never seen her give a performance in which she didn’t so much inhabit the role as be the character she was playing. And did I mention she’s hot?
Mnemosyne
@harlana:
Watch All About Eve sometime, where Bette Davis is constantly told that she’s old and needs to gracefully retire from acting because she’s — gasp! — 40 years old. Or Sunset Boulevard, where it’s disgusting that a pathetic, aging movie actress still wants sex at the advanced age of 50. Or the gray-haired wife that Tom Sewell is tempted to cheat on in The Seven Year Itch because she’s reached the ancient age of 35. So, no, there was never a golden age for aging actresses in movies. If anything, we’re in that golden age now since we have women in their 40s and older still playing the lead in romantic comedies. Unlike, say, Roman Holiday, where it’s perfectly natural that 20-ish Audrey Hepburn falls for 40-ish Gregory Peck.
On TV especially, things are much better than they used to be. I would add Katey Sagal to the above list, along with Marg Helgenberger and Mariska Hargitay.
ETA: Also, too, Jane Lynch, whose career didn’t really take off until she was in her 40s and developed the attractively feminine version of a craggy face.
Cris
Does anybody remember the 1981 Michael Crichton film Looker? It’s hardly a classic, but it does make this point explicitly.
Mnemosyne
I saw an ad for this movie on the Emmys last night that I very much fear is going to suck donkey balls. It’s too bad, because having Sigourney Weaver and Jamie Lee Curtis go head-to-head is dream casting. The average age of the cast has got to be well over 40 once you add in Betty White, Cloris Leachman, Victor Garber, and Patrick Duffy to counterbalance Kristen Bell and Odette Yustman.
Chad N Freude
@Mnemosyne: I hope you didn’t intend to give the impression that “All About Eve” expresses the position that an actress should retire at 40. Quite the contrary, Margo Channing shows that in spite of the prevailing attitude, she can’t be replaced by a sweet, young, schemer.
Chad N Freude
@Mnemosyne: Too bad Betty White didn’t retire at 40, isn’t it?
/snark
Mnemosyne
@Chad N Freude:
Except that she is replaced by Eve — she retires from the stage to marry Gary Merrill’s character. And then a younger version of Eve comes along to replace Eve once Eve wins the Sarah Siddons award.
There is absolutely an attitude in the film that women should gracefully retire once they get “too old.” Watch it again.
Mnemosyne
Oh, and the 2004 remake of Flight of the Phoenix used Dennis Quaid in the Jimmy Stewart part, who was a whole seven years younger than Stewart was when he made the movie. (Quaid was 50; Stewart was 57.) So much for “they would never re-make the film with someone that old in the part!”
Omnes Omnibus
@Chad N Freude: Clooney has been fairly smart about his movies as well. He is doing sort of mid-sized movies like Up in the Air that will hit a lot of movie screens but are not expected to set box office records. As long as the movies turn a tidy profit and get good reviews, he will have no problems. It also helps that he is producing and directing now.
Chad N Freude
@Mnemosyne: You’re right, but Davis gives such a strong performance. That was my take-away from the film.
Chad N Freude
@Omnes Omnibus: It also helps that his movies are really good.
debbie
And that was the best part of the movie.
I think it’s been bad for women all along in Hollywood; the only difference is that now there are “fixes” to cling to youth. How young was Judy Garland when she began getting pummeled over her weight, as if that counted for more important than her singing voice?
Omnes Omnibus
@Chad N Freude: He seems to be going the Newman/Redford route with his career. Not a bad choice.
debbie
Clooney also stands out because he has what seems to be a genuine sense of humor about himself and his standing. I think he’d be the first to say he was a very lucky bastard.
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: OK, take Clooney’s buddy Brad Pitt then. He seems to be aging on screen and continuing to find success.
debbie
I meant that Clooney’s the first guy to make fun of his own looks. In that way, both he and Brad Pitt are similar. But so far, they’re both aging pretty well. Time will tell if they maintain this great self-deprecating attitude, or if they go the way of Robert Redford.
doctorpsycho1960
She reminds me of Mrs. Psycho when we first met (when she was 46 and I was half that — she’s now 72 and Still Hot).
debbie
Also, both Pitt and Clooney do a lot of philanthropic work. Maybe that allows them both to see the “bigger picture” and not get so caught up in their mirrors and in the singularity of their fame (other than as a way to bring more attention to their causes).
JenJen
Speaking of aging actors, I was a little surprised while watching the Emmys last night that Al Pacino’s young daughter was so kissy-kissy with him when he won the Best Actor statuette for “You Don’t Know Jack.”
Oh, wait…. that wasn’t his daughter, was it? ;-)
Maude
@debbie:
She was 14 when they started changing her looks. She was put on the diet pills and ace bandages were used to flatten her chest.
Hollywood has always tried to created the image of glamour and youth.
It never grew up and it will lose money continuing to do youth oriented films.
Few scripts are written for older women.
The woman who made Harlan County got an invite to do fiction feature films. When she went there, they called her the c word and all other types of nasty names.
Claudia Weil ruined independant film making for women when she refused to shoot the film in the correct ratio. She was using 16mm as it is cheaperand they had to blow it up to 35mm. The lab told everyone, almost grabbing people on the street to tell them what an awful person Claudia was. Well, she was, but women got shut out for a long time because of that.
Everything is done by group think and that’s one of the reasons that movies are rarely worth watching.
eric k
Laura,
In the movie they left out all of the relationship with Erika Berger, she was barely even in it, basically just a couple scenes as the editor. They really simplified things a lot to fit it into a little over 2 hours. This is a case where one of those 6 hour miniseries that the BBC does so well would have been a lot better.
maus
@Maude:
Sounds like an entirely convenient excuse to perpetuate the lack of female participation in all aspects of film.
Male directors can be absolute shitburgers, however the boys’ club gets the vapors if a woman is opinionated and full of strange artist-driven quirks. “How unprofessional!”
Amanda
If you’ve not seen the Swedish film of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” do yourself a favor and see it in favor of whatever schlock Hollywood ultimately generates.
I loved the film for the reason cited — Lena *and* all the other women in the film, regardless of their age, were not airbrushed or made to look younger. They looked like real, normal people. And the men were the same. The actor who played Blomkvist looked like a 50ish normal guy who doesn’t get enough sleep.
Consequently, the film was much easier to connect with as a viewer, because the people on the screen didn’t seem like fakes. I also really liked the way the film was shot — nothing flashy, very human scale and accessible. There was one difference with the books that I really didn’t like but other than that, it is imho one of the best films based on a book I’ve seen in ages.
Amanda
@Laura Clawson: Have you seen the British miniseries (title is the same) that the American film “State of Play” is based on? If not, I highly recommend. It is one of the best British drama miniseries I’ve seen in a long time — great cast, excellent writing. Far superior imo to the American version, despite the fab Ms. Mirren.
AxelFoley
@Chad N Freude:
I’d knock the dust off dat ass, straight up.
PanurgeATL
This lady is 55?? She may not have had plastic surgery, but she’s plainly been taking care of herself some way.
debbie
If the movie’s true to the book, this would be because they’re drinking coffee 24 hours a day.
wufnik
Lena Endre was also in the second season of the Swedish television series based on the Wallander novels of Hening Mankell. A very good series, which is being re-broadcast here in England right now. Don’t know if it’s available in the US, but worth tracking down if it is
Mnemosyne
@PanurgeATL:
Given that she’s Swedish, I’m guessing the lack of constant sun exposure has done the trick. Nothing, but nothing, ages you faster than UV damage. I’m 41 and barely even have crow’s feet when I smile, and it’s all because I’ve been obsessively wearing sunscreen for 20 years.
Larkspur
I do not know if anyone else watches the TV show Warehouse 13. (Yes, I said I don’t have cable, but I house-sit for people who do. Yay!) An enjoyable recent episode entitled For The Team guest-starred Lindsay Wagner. Remember? She used to be the Bionic Woman. Then a bunch of made-for-TV flicks, and a spokesmodel gig for mattresses.
But damn, she looked good on Warehouse 13. She’s 61. I don’t know if she’s had any work done, but if she has, it’s been minimal. Her face is real and beautiful; it has a history. She has a face with a view. She didn’t just look good “for 61”; she looked good.
I don’t object to make-up or skin-care, and especially when your work involves having your face shown huge and in HD. I get it that they take measures and do procedures that aren’t necessary for the vast majority of us mere mortals. But I love to see the mobility and history that letting yourself age brings.
Well, not for me, of course: it’s much more fun when a person (like Lindsay Wagner) starts out beautiful.
Batocchio
Don’t forget Liv Ullman!
Steeplejack
@wufnik:
The Swedish Wallander is on a little mini-network called MHz here in the States. It shows up periodically on the omnibus series International Mystery on Sunday and Tuesday nights. MHz is not available everywhere, but MHz’s shows are available for streaming on Roku. I highly recommend the Italian cop show Montalbano (the first six episodes of which have just become available on DVD).