A Quote by Helen Baxendale

People in TV don't want leading actresses over 40. — © Helen Baxendale
People in TV don't want leading actresses over 40.
TV industry pays us as much as the leading guy or probably more. All our shows are women-oriented, and all the TV actresses are getting paid well. There is absolutely no discrimination over here.
The sad truth for American actors is that they really have no control whatsoever over the material that they get, or can do, particularly actresses. And if you're over 40 and you're an actress, forget it.
Sometimes people - especially people over 40 - underestimate what they really are capable of. They believe they're not capable of doing something great. I tell people who are over 40, "I don't want your best. I want better than that. I want better than what you perceive your best is."
The public want actresses, because they think all actresses bad. They don't want music or poetry because they know that both are good. So actors and actresses thrive and poets and composers starve.
In most companies, the corporate mentality is if you're over 30, you're on the downhill side, and if you're over 40, you're brain dead. Or, if you're over 30 or 40 and you've been doing it for a while, you've got experience and you want to be paid for that experience.
I don't just want to be a cute girl in a comedy or the actress who just does the same thing over and over again. I want to play roles that are distinct. I want to have a more varied career like actresses Viola Davis or Angela Bassett - those are the people that I grew up watching and admiring.
When women's parts are being written, they are more and more for under 30s who are nubile and beautiful. Actresses over 40 are finding very little happening.
Because I'm a woman, because I'm a character actress, because I'm over 40, I'll be very interested to see, not just for me but for other actresses, how Hollywood treats us in the next ten, fifteen years. I'm hoping that it's not going to be so easy to shove people under the rug, as they have in the past.
There is this thing in America where actresses reach 40 and go mad. The film industry wants all these young people.
Growing older is not such a big deal for me, despite the fears that older actresses have in Hollywood. When I hit 40, for example, I didn't feel 40 - or whatever that is supposed to feel like.
TV is and will remain the leading medium - whether it's public broadcasting, commercially funded Free-TV, or whether it is our new growth engine, Pay-TV; whether it is distributed via broadcasting or on demand: The future of TV is - TV!
People can talk about punk all they want, but after new wave put that down, metal is the voice of the disenfranchised and that need to become unhinged. That's why it appeals to so many people when they are younger and carries over when those people, at 40, don't want to grow up.
Even if you only have 30- or 40,000 people in the grandstands, if you put on a good event for TV and do the things that it takes to have a unique event, that is really what people want. They want unique things.
I'm going to insult a whole industry here, but it seems like TV is for people who can't do film. I'm not talking about actresses; I'm talking about lighting people. Lighting on TV is just so... it's sinful, it really is.
When I started in the business, years ago, people would always say, "You better get as much work as you can now because, once you get over 40, it's over." I don't see that with TV. Maybe it's because I am getting older, but the kinds of roles I'm drawn to are more mature roles.
TV is kind of messed up in terms of stereotypes and who plays the leading man and leading lady.
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