Geena Davis outrage: Certain male star claimed legend was too old for love interest

Thelma and Louise – Louise – £30,000 (Car Chase)

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Starring alongside the likes of Susan Sarandon and Brad Pitt tonight is Geena Davis in 1991’s Thelma and Louise. The flick, which garnered won an Oscar from six Academy Award nominations, airs from 10.30pm on BBC One. The story follows two unhappy friends who go on the run after they kill an attempted rapist while having a girl’s weekend away.

It has become one of Nineties best loved films, and in 2016 was approved for being preserved in the National Film Registry, as a result of its “cultural, historical or aesthetical” significance.

The 66-year-old, like her co-star Sarandon, is an Oscar winner, after securing the gong in 1989 for Best Supporting Actress in The Accidental Tourist.

Her talents in front of the camera helped secure her legacy as a Hollywood star, and away from it her love life also kept her in the headlines.

But Davis was outraged earlier this year when she discussed how the issue of ageism in Hollywood had become “very strange and so prevalent”.

Speaking on Alison Kugel’s Alison Interviews podcast, Davis described the series of encounters she’d have where her age had been discussed.

Among these was one interaction where Davis claimed she had been denied a role because “a certain male actor” felt the star was “too old to be his romantic interest”.

This coming despite the fact she was “20 years younger than him”.

Davis continued: “It’s very strange and so prevalent.

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“You know what it is? Women peak in their twenties and thirties, and men peak in their forties and fifties as far as actors go.

“So the male stars of the movies want to appear to be younger than they are, or they want to appeal to younger people, so they always want a co-star who is really young.”

She added: “That is why that happens and that is why women don’t get cast very much after 40 and 50.

“It is because they are felt to be too old to be a romantic interest.”

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Davis has been married three times, including to Jurassic Park star Jeff Goldblum between 1987 and 1991.

While her career was at an all-time high following the release of Thelma and Louise, by the mid-Nineties, Davis’ career was on the decline.

Speaking with Vulture in 2016, Davis noted how “film roles really did start to dry up when I got into my forties”, another example of the discrimination she felt in the industry.

Davis said: “If you look at IMDb, up until that age, I made roughly one film a year.

“In my entire forties, I made one movie, Stuart Little.

“I was getting offers, but for nothing meaty or interesting like in my thirties. I’d been completely ruined and spoiled.

“I mean, I got to play a pirate captain! I got to do every type of role, even if the movie failed.”

She last starred in the 2020 American action thriller Ava, alongside the likes of John Malkovich and Common.

Her next release is the upcoming film Pussy Island, where she will count Channing Tatum among her co-stars.

Thelma and Louise airs tonight on BBC One from 10.30pm.

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