Julia Sawalha: Actresses in their 50s only get offered ‘twisted old b—-’ roleS

Absolutely Fabulous star says middle-aged women are viewed by the TV and film industry as ‘not interesting’

Middle-aged actresses only get offered roles like the “twisted old b—-”, Absolutely Fabulous star Julia Sawalha has said.
Sawalha, 55, claimed roles given to actresses her age are the same that were given to women in the 1940s.
She said women in their fifties are neglected by the TV and film industry as they are viewed as “not interesting”.
Sawalha also called on producers to stop casting young actresses to play wives of older male actors.
In 2020, when Chicken Run 2 was announced, Sawalha spoke out about alleged ageism.
The English actress voiced the main character Ginger in the first Chicken Run movie in 2000 but was not re-cast in the sequel just over 20 years later.
At the time, she claimed she was told she sounded “too old” to reprise the starring role in the film, which was released in 2023.
Now, in a new interview, Sawalha has criticised a lack of roles for women in their 50s.
She told the RHLSTP podcast: “Chicken Run was the hardest rejection I’ve dealt with in my career and I think that’s in the way the message was delivered to me.
“It was a blow and I fought for it with the creatives because I felt that possibly I should have been allowed to have a voice test.”
She said although the industry has improved a little, it has a long way to go.
Sawalha suggested roles are still the same for women as they were in the 1940s when middle-aged women looked “exactly the same”.
She said: “I think it’s getting better for older women, I think for male actors it’s getting harder for them.
“I don’t like the way that younger actresses are always cast against older actors to play husband and wife, that still hasn’t changed.”
She added: “And actresses in their fifties – I’m 55 – you get roles sent to you and you’re some bitter old, twisted old b—- that the husband doesn’t want.
“You never get the glamorous… Basically, they’re still writing for women like women were in the 40s. Every single woman in this audience will be wearing something different, whereas in the 40s…
“I saw something on Twitter, someone said, ‘please post a picture yourself, please post a picture of your grandmother’, and all the women posted a picture of themselves in their fifties and their grandmothers in their 50s, and all the women in the 1940s looked exactly the same in their fifties.
“But writers aren’t writing for women in their fifties, it’s like we don’t have a life, it’s like we’re not interesting, and that’s frustrating.”
Sawalha added: “But, it’s changing.”