UTV | COLOMBO – American actor Geena Davis recently revealed that like many of her female contemporaries, she had a hard time finding work after she turned 40.
According to Fox News, the Oscar-winning actor, now 64, who earned a second, honorary award for promoting gender parity in Hollywood, admitted while speaking to The Guardian, “[Once I had] a four in front of my age, I fell off the cliff. I really did.”
Davis remembered her days before 40, she wasn’t too afraid of where her career was headed because “Meryl Streep, Jessica Lange and Sally Field” were still making “great female-centric movies.”
Additionally, the “great roles, really tippy-top roles” that Davis was playing at the time assuaged any fears she had, making her feel that “things must be getting better for women.”
“But suddenly, the great roles were incredibly scarce,” she said. “It was a big difference.”
The actor then said she was a little surprised that her work, and the work of other female actors, hadn’t led to the big change she was hoping to see in the movie industry.
“Everyone said ‘Now we’re going to have so many movies starring women.’ And I was like ‘Hot dog! I’m in something that started the change,'” she recalled.
“And then ‘A League of Their Own comes’ out and everyone says ‘Now there’s going to be so many women’s sports movies!’ And five years go by … It was a shock that absolutely nothing happened,” Davis said.
As Fox News reported, the ‘Accidents Happen’ star also discussed sexual harassment within Hollywood, recounting once being told by a director to sit on his lap during an audition, as well as watching other directors sexually harass others on set.
“You can’t say anything, because it will kill your career,” she said of the culture in her earlier years in show business.
However, #MeToo came around and shook things up “People really can talk about it now. It’s like night and day and it’s amazing,” said Davis.