Andie MacDowell is happy to be aging.
The actress recently walked the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival, and she spoke with People about being 65 years old, and the aging double-standards for men and women.
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“Men are seen as really sexy when they start to get wrinkles,” she said. “I like all the terms we use for older men. I want to hold onto those terms. I want to be debonair. Why not? What a beautiful term.”
Explaining why women don’t as often embrace aging, MacDowell said, “We’ve been brainwashed, and it’s a psychological thing that we’ve bought into because we’ve been fed it for so long. We don’t allow ourselves to feel good about ourselves and we even perceive [older men] as sexy, because we’ve been taught this.”
As a spokesperson for L’Oréal Paris International, MacDowell has been outspoken about embracing aging, but she admitted that it took until very recently for her to feel confident enough to own it herself.
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“There is this time period between 40 and 60 that I think women in the business can struggle because they don’t know what to do. They’ve been seen as one way, but they’re not really seen as what I am now,” she said. “I was struggling and I’m much more comfortable with where I am right now. I love being an older woman. I really enjoy it. And it doesn’t feel less sexy.”
MacDowell also explained that it’s allowed her to enjoy playing “complex older women” onscreen.
“I feel like my career is actually doing really well right now because I’ve dove into being an older woman and accepted it,” she said.
