Ironically, although she too has grown older in the public eye, she is just now realizing that fact when it comes to her career. “For years, I’ve been the youngest person on the set, and it occurred to me recently that I wasn’t 26!” She throws back her head and laughs. “I’d read a script and say, ‘Oh, that’s a great character, that’s something I’d love to do.’ And they’d say, ‘Um, no, we’re thinking of you for the mother.’ And then I’d say, ‘Oh, of course! Of course! I knew that.’ ”
She feels as if she’s in a “middle place” in Hollywood at the moment. “There aren’t a lot of movies out there for my age,” she says with a sigh. “They’re still stopping at the mid-thirties. Then you’re Diane Keaton or Glenn Close.” She has noticed that this forty-something limbo extends to advertising as well. “I always find it funny that so much skin cream advertising features, like, Jessica Alba,” she carps. “She’s gorgeous, and 12! OK? They’re all that age! I don’t care how much La Mer I put on my skin, I’m not going to have Jessica Alba’s face! And then it goes from that to ‘age defying.’ And you’re kind of like, what happened to the middle here? You’re nubile or you’re age defying!” For the record, she favors La Mer and “the one made by the monks, from Fresh” (Crème Ancienne), but she says that no cream is going to work miracles if she’s sleep-deprived or on too many airplanes in a row.
