Geena Davis Says She Was Once Told She Was 'Too Unattractive' For A Movie Role

Geena Davis, 70 years old and starring in The Boroughs on Netflix, sat down for a new interview and revisited the specific cruelties Hollywood has delivered to her over five decades, including being told she was not attractive enough for a role and, in a separate incident, being told she was too old to play the romantic interest of a male co-star who was 20 years older than her.

"It's very strange and so prevalent," she said of the ageism and sexism she experienced. "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."

The attractiveness comment landed differently. Davis has spoken before about sitting in rooms where her looks, and their perceived shelf life, were treated as the primary variable in whether she was castable. Hollywood's formula was explicit.

Women peak in their 20s and 30s for casting purposes, men peak in their 40s and 50s, and the system was designed to enforce that gap rather than question it.

Davis started her institute to fight it. The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, which she launched in 2004 after watching children's programming with her daughter and being struck by how few female characters existed, has spent two decades gathering data that producers and studios did not want to look at.

"People in Hollywood are still resistant to the idea even though my institute found that in 2017 and 2018, movies starring women made more money than movies starring men," she said.

She is 70 years old and not interested in going quietly. "I think aging is fabulous," she said. "I like myself better every year."