Barbara Hershey recalls being 'shocked' reading a script where a 50-year-old female character was described as having a 'wizened face'
- Barbara Hershey read a script where a 50-year-old woman's face was described as "wizened."
- She said she was shocked and thought audiences were ready to "embrace people of all ages."
Barbara Hershey thinks audiences are ready to "embrace people of all ages," including older adults, in films and TV shows.
As an accomplished actress with a decades-long career - with credits in critically acclaimed movies like "The Portrait of a Lady" and "Black Swan" - the 73-year-old is used to the industry. Still, she's not beyond being stunned at how older women continue to be portrayed on-screen.
"I remember reading a script where it was a character who was 50 years old, and it said, 'A tear ran down her wizened face,'" Hershey told Insider. "And I just thought, 'Whoa.' I looked to see who had written it - it was actually two women. That really shocked me."
While Hershey said the quantity of roles for women decreased as they aged, she cited HBO's fantasy series "Game of Thrones" as a show that successfully represented people of all ages.
"They had people of all ages in 'Game of Thrones.' They had really young people and really older people, and we loved them all," the "Insidious" actress said.
"I really think audiences are ready to embrace people of all ages, and older people are just younger people who got older," Hershey added. "That's the only difference, and in many ways, we're better. I have more fun now, and I know more, so it's not such a fearful thing."
Hershey's new horror film, 'The Manor,' is about older people
Hershey plays Judith Albright in "The Manor," a gothic horror movie from Amazon Studios that's part of its "Welcome to the Blumhouse" series. In "The Manor," Judith moves into a nursing home after her health begins to decline but soon realizes some of the residents there have made an unholy bargain with an evil spirit.
The Belgian filmmaker Axelle Carolyn directed the film and told Insider that she centered the film on older characters after noticing a lack of representation.
"I have a lot of women in my life who are older and who are just phenomenal. They're charismatic. They're funny. They're sexy. And I so rarely see women portrayed that way," Carolyn said. "It seems like over a certain age, people expect you to become a different person and to behave very proper and to bake crumpets and cookies."
The director added of Judith: "It seemed like that was the kind of character that was missing. I'm hoping that this inspires more movies to have those kinds of characters."
"The Manor" is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video. You can watch the trailer below.