Naomi Watts Was Told Her Acting Career Would End Once She ‘Became Unf—able’ at 40: ‘That Made Me so Mad’
variety.comZack Sharf Naomi Watts just earned strong reviews for leading Amazon Prime Video’s English-language remake of “Goodnight Mommy.” This month, she’s headlining Ryan Murphy’s latest Netflix thriller, “The Watcher.” She’ll also be reuniting with the mega-producer to play Babe Paley in the Capote-centric second season of FX’s “Feud.” All of this is to say Watts’ acting career is thriving, which is not what she was told by an unnamed Hollywood figure after her U.S.
breakthrough in David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive.” Watts was 33 at the time, which many in Hollywood viewed as old. “I was told, ‘You better get a lot done because it’s all over at 40 when you become unfuckable.’ And I’m like, ‘What?
What does that mean exactly?'” Watts recently told Entertainment Weekly. “Then you think about it, and you go, ‘Oh, right. When you are no longer reproductive, when those organs are no longer functioning, you are not sexy, so, therefore, you are not hirable.’ That just made me so mad.” When asked what Hollywood can do better to make room for women after a certain age, Watts responded, “It’s such an awkward conversation because, from day one, we begin our aging process.
It’s something we just all have to get comfortable with and women are asked to do it more than men.” “We don’t talk about a man aging hardly ever,” Watts continued. “We don’t talk about his gray hair.
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