Tessa Peake-Jones: Ageism Stops Her From Acting

Only Fools and Horses star Tessa Peake-Jones says she feels 'forced' to wear contact lenses at auditions - because casting directors never offer her roles when she’s wearing glasses. 

The actress played former stripper Raquel Turner in the iconic  sitcom for five years and has spent the past ten years as vicarage housekeeper Mrs Chapman in popular TV drama Grantchester. 

But despite her screen success across five decades, Peake-Jones, 68, said she still gets judged by her appearance. 

Talking to on the How To Be 60 podcast, she revealed: 'In our job as actors - because some of it is still on look and age - when I used to go up for jobs, if I went to do readings with my glasses on, I never got the job

'I have now trained myself to wear contact lenses, which I don’t like - I don’t think it’s natural to have something in your eyeballs - but I had to, because I couldn’t read in the room if I didn’t have my glasses on. Now, it might be mad and maybe I am imagining it, but I don’t think I am.' 

The actress said that she was afraid to let her hair go naturally grey for the same reason, despite approaching her seventies. 

She explained: 'My mum was grey when she was 40, but again, in my job, if you turn up with grey hair, you’re not going to get the job I’m afraid, unless they’re looking for the typical grandmother.

'It’s a shame. It’s narrow mindedness on behalf of some people who cast, or directors.' 

Peake-Jones will shortly be seen on screen in the much-awaited U&Gold documentary Only Fools and Horses: The Lost Archive.

The legendary sitcom featured Sir David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst as brothers Del Boy and Rodney, who were . 

Only Fools and Horses The new two-part documentary marks the show’s 45th anniversary and features never-before-seen footage, alongside cast interviews.

But Peake-Jones, who played Del Boy’s recurrent love interest Raquel, admitted that both she and David Jason struggled to watch the footage of themselves from all those years ago.

She told How To Be 60: 'It was a little bit torturous sitting and watching all this stuff and it was harder for David Jason, because some of the scenes of him were 45 years ago and he’s now 83. 

'He was quite sad at one point. I said: ‘are you ok?’ and they filmed our reaction. And he said: ‘no, I’m finding it quite sad.’ I said: ‘why is that?’ and he said: "well, there we were at our peak."

'And now he’s a man in his 80s. It’s very different to look back 45 years and see how brilliant you were then and now you’ve moved on. It was quite moving.' 

The actress also said she found it equally hard to watch herself on-screen. 

'It’s like looking at a photograph, or listening to your voice on an answer machine,' she said. 'It’s bad enough now. Imagine seeing yourself in your so-called prime and heyday 30 years ago, it’s really weird. It’s like looking at someone who isn’t you really.

'You know it is, but you’re so different from that now. And you’ve had so many things happen to you in your life since then, that have altered the way you are now. 

'You want to say to that person 30 years ago on the telly screen - if only you knew what was coming ahead. But, of course, you can’t.

'All you can do is go: "oh God, my hair looked awful," "oh, I haven’t got much lipstick on." And you start to pick at yourself again, so that’s the reason I’ve never watched myself. 

'I can’t be objective. I just see negative things. Some people can watch themselves and learn and really get better. I can’t, I’m no good at that.' 

Peake-Jones admitted that both she and David Jason struggled to watch the footage of themselves in Only Fools And Horses from all those years ago