Geena Davis Reveals Male Star Called Her ‘Too Old’ To Play His Love Interest – ‘I Was 20 Years Younger’

Hollywood star Geena Davis of Thelma And Louise fame has long been someone who advocates for women, particularly as they age.

In a new interview in which she opened up about ageism in Hollywood, Davis revealed that she was once denied a role because the unnamed leading actor said that she was “too old” to play his love interest, even though she was two decades younger than him. 

Geena Davis Condemns Ageism 

“It’s very strange and so prevalent,” Davis explained, according to Fox News. “A certain male actor that was making a movie said that I was too old to be his romantic interest, and I was 20 years younger than him.”

“Women peak in their 20s and 30s, and men peak in their 40s and 50s as far as actors go,” the 65 year-old actress added. “So the male stars of the movies want to appear to be younger than they are, or they want to appeal to younger people, so they always want a co-star who is really young.”

“That is why that happens and that is why women don’t get cast very much after 40 and 50. It is because they are felt to be too old to be a romantic interest,” Davis concluded. 

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Watch Davis talk about what she is doing to get more opportunities for women in Hollywood in the video below.

Geena Davis Treated Differently After Her Oscar 

Daily Mail reported that in this same interview, Davis talked about how after she won her Oscar for her work in the 1988 movie The Accidental Tourist, it was “assumed” she was going to “think she was all that” after her win.

Davis believes that this never would have been the perception if she was a male. 

“I had two directors, after I won the Oscar, who I had a rocky start with, because they assumed that I was going to think I was all that and they wanted to make sure I didn’t feel like I was all that,” she recalled. “Without having met me or having spent any time with me or anything, they just assumed I was going to be like, ‘Well, now no one is going to tell me what to do.'”

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‘They Didn’t Want A Woman To Potentially Cause Them Any Problems’

“I think maybe because I was a woman, that the directors felt that way. And maybe it was even unconscious bias that they would do it to a woman and not a man,” Davis continued. “But they didn’t want a woman to potentially cause them any problems. They wanted to make sure I knew my place, and it probably wouldn’t happen to a man.”

Hollywood certainly is one crazy place! Good for Geena Davis for continuing to challenge female stereotypes, and fight on behalf of women everywhere as well. Her struggle against ageism is certainly something that women from all walks of life will be able to relate to.