Mind the movie age gap: Hollywood has a habit of casting leading older men with 20-something women

From The Hunger Games to Suffragette, it’s a good year for women on screen. But with 20-something women cast opposite 40-plus men, Hollywood has an older man problem, says Susannah Butter
L-R: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon, Sienna Miller and Jennifer Lawrence

In a speech this week, Reese Witherspoon paid tribute to fellow actress Amy Schumer. Witherspoon said if a Schumer biopic is made she wants in. But there is one problem, Witherspoon, 39, told the audience at the Glamour Women of the Year awards: “Amy, I’m five years older than you, so I’ll probably have to play your grandmother in the movie, by Hollywood standards, and you’ll have to play your own mother.”

Witherspoon is the latest star to speak out about Hollywood’s age gap. This is a world where men can grow old and still get the girl in her twenties, while women disappear after 40 or, as Women in Film and TV’s chief executive Kate Kinninmont says: “If they are lucky be cast as the elderly lady or the witch”.

At the London Film Festival last month, the event’s director Clare Stewart said 2015 is “the year of the strong woman”. She celebrated a long overdue shift in the male-dominated movie industry, with films such as Suffragette and the Hunger Games not only starring intelligent, purposeful women but often written and directed by them too.

Yet, as Cate Blanchett, 46, acknowledged, “actress years are like dog years.” In 27-year-old Emma Stone’s most recent roles (Birdman, Aloha and Irrational Man) her male co-stars have been 53, 45 and 40. In real life, her last boyfriend Andrew Garfield is 32.

Meanwhile, Scarlett Johansson, 30, has never been paired romantically with a man younger than her, and in the past two years has been opposite two 47-year-olds. Bill Murray is her oldest co-star— 52 to her 18 in Lost in Translation.

The Hunger Games is the only film out at the moment where the female lead is older than her male co-star (Jennifer Lawrence and Liam Hemsworth are both 25, Josh Hutcherson is 23). Much has been made of “mature Bond girl” Monica Bellucci, 51, being cast in Spectre but she appears for all of 15 minutes and critics wonder whether seeing her telling Bond her husband’s secrets then looking sad in suspenders signifies progress. Daniel Craig’s main love interest is Lea Seydoux, 30 — Craig may be a well-preserved 47 but is he good enough for Seydoux to ignore the 17-year age gap?

“We are underusing the talent of women,” says Kinninmont. But people are starting to talk about it — not least because the film industry has realised that it might be losing them money, with chick flicks bringing in more revenue than bloke busters at the box office.

Celebrities and the Hollywood pay gap

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Witherspoon and Blanchett’s comments come after a particularly bad 2014. Films like Birdman, Foxcatcher and Whiplash barely registered on the Bechdel test — which asks whether a work of fiction features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. In last year’s Oscars, only four of the nine films nominated for Best Picture passed the test — but even the ones that made the grade didn’t come out well. American Hustle, for example, squeezed through on the back of a single scene in which women discuss nail varnish.

Film producer Stephen Follows says: “The age gap matters because films are a major part of our culture and inform how we think about the world. Movies are so pervasive, it’s impossible that they don’t have an effect on what we consider an age-appropriate relationship. The first place that many children see relationships that aren’t between their parents is on screen”

In his career, Follows has noticed “a resigned sense of ‘the age gap being how it is’”. He drew attention to the older man problem, studying films made between 1984 and 2014, and finding that during this time the average age of female leads in a year was never higher than the average age of their male counterparts. He focused on romantic films “because there are hardly any women in action films or other genres”. It was Maggie Gyllenhaal who inspired Follows’s study when earlier this year she revealed that she was turned down for a role opposite a 55-year-old man because, at 37, she was considered “too old” to play his partner by casting directors.

Things are improving. Emily Blunt, star of crime thriller Sicario, thinks there’s been a “sea change” for women in film — although not yet “a tsunami”. In Sicario she plays an FBI agent, but the film’s makers said they were under pressure to rewrite the lead role to be played by a man.

Emily Blunt thinks there’s been a “sea change” for women in film
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Gender-swapping of roles works the other way too. While there is still a lack of substantial roles being written for women, more films are being made with a woman in a part that was originally intended to be played by a man.

Sandra Bullock took the lead in Our Brand Is Crisis, convincing producer George Clooney to tweak the role for a woman, and Julia Roberts’s next job was originally written for a man. Then there are the all-female remakes, from Ghostbusters to Ocean’s Eleven.

Casting women is in the industry’s interest too. As Witherspoon said: “Films with women at the centre are not a public service project. They are a big-time, bottom line-enhancing, money-making commodity.” Pitch Perfect 2, for example, which was directed by Elizabeth Banks and driven by an ensemble of women, is one of the highest grossing films of the year. It cost $29 million to make, and opened to a $70 million weekend.

Reese Witherspoon spoke out about Hollywood's gender age gap at the London Film Festival
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Kinninmont explains: “For a long time, distributors assumed that their main audience was men aged 19-25 and would aim the experience at them. This has shifted because young people are watching movies on Netflix and tablets. Now it’s older people going to the cinema, and older women are a key group.”

Peggy Rajski, head of producing at New York University’s graduate film programme, adds: “Half the world’s population is female. Why wouldn’t you target that audience? But clearly women aren’t the only ones going to these movies.”

But there is still an “unconscious bias” at work, says Kinninmont, “which means it is the norm for men to be older than women in movies”. Fellows explains: “People tend not to veer from the norm so if a woman seems older your film is going to stick out a bit and why would you do that if you don’t need to?”

This “trickles down to television”, says Kinninmont: “And it affects culture and other industries — despite the equal pay act of 1970, women still aren’t paid equally to men.”

“There is a theory that male producers do not want to cast someone who reminds them of their first wife. It means employment for women in the business is pretty low —women over 40 find it difficult to find parts. I remember Sheila Hancock being told she looked too old to play John Thaw’s wife — even though she was his wife in real life.”

For Follows, “generally the problem is the system rather than overt sexism. Having more female directors and writers might lead to a change.” More young women are making shorts and directors such as Abi Morgan are focusing on having films with more good parts for women, like Suffragette.

Actresses are often cagey about their age in interviews and Texan actress Junie Hoang tried to sue the Internet Movie Database for publishing her real age in 2013 — 42. She claimed it made her lose work. She lost. Kinninmont is sympathetic: “It is difficult to speak out — nobody likes to stick their head above the parapet and worry that they may not get parts again.

“Someone such as Meryl Streep can talk about it — she knows she will be listened to. It is important that women and men at the top speak up and use their power to help everyone else.”

Leading actress Meryl Streep turned 66 this year
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Geena Davis, 59, star of Thelma and Louise, says women in film are “definitely” discriminated against because of their age but she is sorting it out through her Institute on Gender in Media.

“It shouldn’t just be up to the women”, says Kinninmont. “People like Bradley Cooper have shown equality is not just women’s business.” After a leak revealed that Cooper earned more than Jennifer Lawrence for American Hustle, Cooper said, “it’s time to start talking about salaries with colleagues so everyone can be in a better position to negotiate.”

Actress Zoe Saldana has a rallying cry: “By the time you’re 28 you’re expired. We’re not the ones putting ourselves in those places. We’re allowing ourselves to be put in those positions. I just won’t allow it.”

Follow Susannah Butter on Twitter @susannahbutter

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