The exact moment Geena Davis’ career was derailed: “It was like I drove off a cliff”
Women in Hollywood have historically been told that their careers would end after they had kids or hit the age of 30, with female actors disappearing from screens long before their male counterparts. Previously, women in film would struggle to not only find substantial parts at the height of their careers but would be openly told by agents and studio executives that they would no longer be cast in projects after hitting a certain age, being warned about the industry’s delusional sell-by date for women.
However, things have started to change in recent years, with Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern and Reese Witherspoon all having careers that have only sky-rocketed as they’ve grown older, reaching a new and under-represented audience by focusing on female-led stories and narratives that have been excluded from cinema. This is something that Geena Davis has struggled with over the years, highlighting this issue in her biography Dying of Politeness.
Geena Davis is a beloved Hollywood figure who has built a career from unconventional and surprising roles, starring in Beetlejuice, Thelma and Louise, The Fly and Tootsie, working with some of the strangest directors on the block. In addition, she has had a full and colourful life away from the silver screen, becoming a semi-finalist in the women’s archery team at the Olympics alongside other creative outlets outside of acting, including writing and producing.
Over the years, she has seen all sides of the business, describing uncomfortable on-set experiences with abusive men and the old-fashioned attitudes towards women that tainted the industry for many years. Because of this, Davis found herself experiencing a nose-dive at a certain point in her career, discussing the challenges of this and limiting opportunities for women in the industry.
Davis described the age at which her position in Hollywood began to shift, saying, “Comically, at 40. It was like I drove off a cliff. I’d heard about this very early on, this concept that after 40, the roles dry up. It didn’t worry me at all because I thought it wouldn’t happen to me. Every year at the Oscars, Glenn Close and Jessica Lange and Sally Field were getting all these awards. I thought, ‘Well, it’s not going to happen to them. Their careers are flourishing.’ And, ‘It won’t happen to them, therefore it won’t happen to anybody else after that.’ Once I started getting some of these incredible roles, I thought, ‘Well, certainly it is not going to happen to me.’ So when it did…”
Despite being warned about this, it still came as a shock for Davis, who was surprised at the blatant misogyny that came to rule her working life. She expanded on the impact of this, saying, “I remember getting to a point where I thought, ‘This is forced retirement. I don’t want to do less.’ People would make up reasons why I was in fewer movies. Like after I had kids.”
While Hollywood executives can attempt to come up with logical explanations as to why these women were offered less roles and slowly shunned from the industry, the truth is blatantly clear, and thank goodness that these practices have started to shift and we’re seeing challenging and nuanced stories of real women on the big screen.
