Joely Richardson candidly discussed the lack of acting roles for middle-aged women in a new interview on Tuesday.
The actress, 59, admitted that she has been forced to ‘work hard for her career’ as she has gotten older and at one point felt there was ‘no place’ for her.
Ahead of her latest role as Lady Sabrina in The Gentlemen, a spin-off of Guy Ritchie’s 2019 film, she explained how the part came her way.
Joely told Radio Times: ‘I was offered it! I loved playing her. I liked her posh comedy and found her offbeat and eccentric. I describe this series as Downton Abbey and Peaky Blinders in a blender.’
Adding that she does still have to audition for a lot of her roles, she continued: ‘It’s a career I’ve had to work at. When I got older, no one knew how to cast me. I wasn’t getting through the door. There was no place for me in my new age group.’
Joely Richardson, 59, candidly discussed the lack of acting roles for middle-aged women in a new interview on Tuesday (pictured this month)
The actress continued: ‘Being cast as Mrs Bolton in Lady Chatterley’s Lover [2022], weirdly, really helped me. It felt very full circle – having played Lady Chatterley herself [1993] when I was younger. It made doors open.
‘I got to play the young ones when I was young, the middle-aged ones when I was middle-aged, and now that I’m on the other side of that and I get to play these characters.’
In The Gentlemen, Theo James portrays lead character Eddie, who inherits ‘his father’s sizeable estate only to discover’ its a ‘weed empire owned by the legendary Mickey Pearson.
In the series, host of unsavoury characters from Britain’s criminal underworld want a piece of Eddie’s operation.
Determined to extricate his family from their clutches, Eddie tries to play the gangsters at their own game. However, as he gets sucked into the world of criminality, he begins to find a taste for it.
Of the new production, Guy said: ‘The world of ‘The Gentlemen’ is a little bit of me, I’m thrilled that with Netflix, Miramax and Moonage we have this opportunity to inhabit it once again.
‘We’re looking forward to bringing fans back into that world, introducing new characters and their stories and I am excited to be doing it with this extremely talented cast.’
As well as creating the TV series adaptation, Guy will also direct the first two episodes.
The actress admitted that she has been forced to ‘work hard for her career’ as she has gotten older and at one point felt there was ‘no place’ for her (picture din June 2023)
The 2019 movie starred Matthew McConaughey, Charlie Hunnam, Michelle Dockery, Colin Farrell, Jeremy Strong, Henry Golding, and Hugh Grant among many others.
It proved to be a box office success, grossing just over $115 million against a reported budget of $22 million.
In the film version, Mickey Pearson (played by Matthew) was a drug lord that tried to sell off his profitable marijuana business to a dynasty of billionaires.
The Gentlemen will be released on Netflix in 2024.
Joely’s full interview is in Radio Times
