Does the Oscars still have a female ageing issue in 2024? Why Hollywood might finally be turning a corner

Published

1 year ago

March 10, 2024

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Goldie Hawn’s character in The First Wives Club summed it up best: “There are only three ages for women in Hollywood: babe, district attorney, or Driving Miss Daisy.”

That was almost 30 years ago, but we’re still having the conversation.

A land of airbrushed perfection, Hollywood has always had an issue with ageing – reflected in who wins what at the big awards. For decades, there has been an age disparity between Oscar-winning actors and actresses, with veteran male stars feted, while for women it has typically been the younger “ingenues” collecting the gongs.

There has been much talk of change in the industry in recent years – but is it actually happening?

Sky News analysis of the Oscars acting categories across 10-year periods shows there has typically always been a gap between the average age of female winners and male winners.

However, following the results at recent ceremonies – cemented with wins for Everything Everywhere All At Once stars Michelle Yeoh (now 61) and Jamie Lee Curtis (now 65) in 2023 – the average age gap closed for the first time last year.

What happens if you look at single years?

The graph above shows the average ages during 10-year periods to show when trends emerge, but taking single years into account the difference has often been even starker.

In 2000, for instance – the age gap between the then 25-year-old Hilary Swank (best actress) and 24-year-old Angelina Jolie (best supporting actress) was small. But in the equivalent male categories, the gap was almost 30 years – between Kevin Spacey (40 at the time, best actor) and Michael Caine (then 67, best supporting actor). This means that, across both the male and female categories that year, the average age gap was 29 years.

In 2013, the average age gap was 29.5 years, with Jennifer Lawrence (22 at the time) and Anne Hathaway (30) winning the female acting awards, and Daniel Day-Lewis (55) and Christoph Waltz (56) picking up the trophies for the men.

That’s not to say this doesn’t occasionally happen the other way around. In 1990, the acting age gap was 29 years but this time with the female average the higher number. The winners? Daniel Day-Lewis and Denzel Washington (then aged 32 and 35); Brenda Fricker (45) and Jessica Tandy (80) – for, interestingly, her performance in Driving Miss Daisy.

In 95 years of the Oscars, this is the only time the female average age has been more than 20 years higher than the male average age – something that has happened 14 times the other way round. Hawn really did have a point.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the honouring of older men and younger women was all particularly prevalent in the 1990s and 2000s; in the 20 years from 1990 to 2009, the average age of female winners was higher than the male winners on just three occasions.

But in the last 10 years, there have been five years when the female average age has been higher, and five years when the male average age has been higher.

Equality!

Well, not quite. If things go as predicted this year then the two male winners will be on average about 16 years older than the two female stars – but then again, last year, the average age for the women was nine-and-a-half years more than that for the men.

It’s too early to say for definite that Hollywood has turned a corner – but the data certainly shows promise following years of conversations about the need for improving and diversifying roles for women of all ages on screen.

‘In the ’60s, I never saw another woman’

Jodie Foster was just 12 when she controversially starred as a child prostitute alongside Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver in 1976 – the film that earned the star her first Oscar nomination, for best supporting actress, at 14, and made her one of the youngest nominees ever.

She went on to win the Academy Award for best actress twice, for The Accused and Silence Of The Lambs in 1989 and 1992 – both before she was 30 – and is now, more than 30 years later, up for best supporting actress once again for her performance in Nyad. The film stars Annette Bening (nominated for best actress) as endurance-swimmer Diana Nyad, who at 60 decided to re-attempt the punishing 110-mile swim from Cuba to Florida which eluded her in her youth, and Foster as her friend and trainer Bonnie Stoll.

Foster, 61, says the industry has come “a long way” since she started out starring in adverts as a child in the 1960s. “I’ve been in the business for 58 years,” she tells Sky News. “When I first started in the ’60s, I never saw another woman… sometimes it was the lady who played my mom, or sometimes a make-up artist, but for the most part it was really just an entirely male environment.

“That’s changed, little by little by little, with [female] technicians coming in and female producers and now, really just recently for the United States, women directors. That was the last bastion of change, where we now have more women directors… I have seen that change, for sure.”

The actress has most recently been seen in the latest season of the hit series True Detective, in which she stars as a police chief alongside Kali Reis as a state trooper, investigating mysterious disappearances from a research station in Alaska.

After “playing strong women my whole life”, Foster says two female characters leading a show should not be headline news – but what has changed for women on screen is the way characters are developed. “The world of complexity hasn’t always been reserved for women. We were ‘the mother of…’, ‘the sister of…’, ‘the prostitute’, you know. It has taken a lot of work by women to flesh out female characters in the industry over time.”

‘You don’t pay us as much – but we still have some clout’

British actress Olivia Colman, who won the Oscar for best actress in 2019 for her portrayal of Queen Anne in The Favourite, and can currently be seen starring in mystery comedy Wicked Little Letters, says things are getting better but there is still a way to go – when it comes to roles and pay.

“Let’s fight for that journey,” she tells Sky News. “Over half the world’s population is women. We are interested in seeing ourselves reflected in stories, as all people are – wherever you’re from, you want to see yourself reflected in a story.

“I don’t stop watching telly once I’m 31, or films or stories or theatre, I still want to watch. And although you don’t pay us as much, we still have some clout. So – don’t underestimate women!”

‘More great roles – and not just for Meryl Streep’

Film critic Anna Smith, co-host of the Girls On Film podcast, says there has been a history of Hollywood casting younger women alongside older male stars.

“Whereas you can be a sexy George Clooney getting older, women – even in their 40s – can struggle to get work. I know some actresses that say when they reach a certain age, there’s a couple of decades where they’re a bit stuck because they either play the mum role or they have to wait and play the grandmother role. There aren’t as many meaty roles for women of all ages as there should be – and when they do happen, sometimes the older roles, they can be very cliched.”

However, Smith thinks that while there is still more work to be done to level the playing field, there has definitely been a shift in the last decade – and since the rise of the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements especially.

“We are seeing more great roles for older actresses and a variety – not just Meryl Streep, you know, there’s a little bit more out there for everybody. You look at Frances McDormand in Nomadland [in 2021]… she gives a wonderful performance and [it was] great to see that recognised at the Oscars and many other ceremonies.”

There is one thing she points out about Everything Everywhere All At Once, though. “The central role was originally conceived for Jackie Chan, and then they flipped it. And what you actually often find in recent years, when you get a film that is recognised well at the Oscars etc, when it’s a strong female character, a complex female character, it was often planned for a man…

“I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand – great that people are open-minded enough now to go, hang on a minute, let’s just check our bias here, why is this role going to a man when it could go to a woman? That’s great, to challenge your bias, but at the same time, that does suggest complex roles for women aren’t being written specifically for women.”

So what needs to be done?

“I think there needs to be more investment in independent film and also people keeping an eye on the Hollywood machine,” says Smith. “Anyone working in the diversity area within big studios, I think, has got a real influence and the potential to make a change.

“The more people of different ages and ethnicities and backgrounds who are working in film and keep an open mind and are challenging their own biases, the more interesting and complex older characters we get. But I would also love to see people judging women less by their looks. I think there’s a real issue still in Hollywood, where some women feel pressured to have cosmetic surgery at a certain age in order to conform to some kind of unrealistic beauty standards.

“I think it’s a problem that is hopefully going away slightly, because you do look at the likes of Jamie Lee Curtis and she looks like an ordinary woman of her age, which is incredible. I would like to see more of that.”

In the Oscars acting results of recent years at least, it does feel like Hollywood has moved on from the ages of babe, district attorney and Driving Miss Daisy only.

Now Tinseltown just has to continue allowing women to grow old on screen, gracefully or otherwise – exactly the same as the men.

Entertainment

Reservoir Dogs actor Michael Madsen died from heart failure, says cardiologist

Published

16 hours ago

July 9, 2025

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Reservoir Dogs actor Michael Madsen died from heart failure, says cardiologist

Actor Michael Madsen, who starred in Reservoir Dogs and Thelma & Louise, died from heart failure, his cardiologist has said.

The 67-year-old was found unresponsive in his home in Malibu, California, last Thursday and pronounced dead.

His doctor said heart disease and alcoholism will be listed as factors which contributed to the star’s death, reported NBC Los Angeles.

With no suspicious circumstances and the death listed as being from natural causes, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department considers the case closed.

In a career spanning more than 40 years, Madsen’s film credits include Free Willy, Donnie Brasco and Sin City.

He was also known for his collaborations with director Quentin Tarantino, including in Kill Bill: Vol. 2, The Hateful Eight and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.

The Chicago-born actor also linked up with Tarantino when he played Mr Blonde in 1992’s Reservoir Dogs.

His sister, Oscar-nominated actress Virginia Madsen, paid tribute to her brother in a statement to Variety.

She wrote: “My brother Michael has left the stage.

“He was thunder and velvet. Mischief wrapped in tenderness. A poet disguised as an outlaw. A father, a son, a brother – etched in contradiction, tempered by love that left its mark.”

Madsen was preparing to release a new book called Tears For My Father: Outlaw Thoughts And Poems.

A statement by managers Susan Ferris and Smith, and publicist Liz Rodriguez, said the book by “one of Hollywood’s most iconic actors” was currently being edited.

Entertainment

Fantasy v reality: Lena Dunham’s Too Much is a new spin on the London romcom

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20 hours ago

July 9, 2025

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Fantasy v reality: Lena Dunham's Too Much is a new spin on the London romcom

Horse-drawn carriages, picturesque gardens and endless cups of tea are just some of the stereotypical tropes that have shaped America’s romanticised image of England before even stepping foot on the island.

Thanks to classical literature and a steady stream of period dramas, Lena Dunham was no exception.

“I had so many fantasies,” she tells Sky News about growing up slightly obsessed with British culture.

“I loved Jane Austen, I loved Charlotte Bronte, I love British film, I was one of those little Anglophile kids.”

The writer and director believed it would be that area of classically depicted England that would fill her time when she first moved to “jolly old London” as a teenager with her mother for a brief time.

Instead, her attention was taken by another, and possibly equally influential group of artists.

“There was a pop show about S Club 7 and all I did was just sit in the hotel and obsessively watch things relating to [the group],” she said.

“So, I didn’t go home with all this cultural British knowledge. I went home with a deep abiding love of S Club 7 and came back to school when everyone was obsessed with the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC.

“For me, I was literally like, ‘Guys, you got to hear this hot track right off the presses, it’s called Reach For The Stars’.”

It wasn’t until her 30s, when the actress moved again to the city, that reality took hold and she quickly learned the difference between the imagined London and the real city.

Some stereotypes hold true, like the universal love for Paddington. Still, TV tropes like renting a flat on a single income in the city does not necessarily mean you’ll be treated to lavish rooms and a picturesque garden.

She says it was social cues she found most challenging to adjust to, as well as the different dictionaries used when speaking, technically, the same language.

“You come to a new country and even though you speak the same language, you’re totally absent from those tools,” she says.

“And I found that really striking as an adult in my 30s, trying to make friends, trying to date. I found it confusing enough to be a person in my own city of origin, so this was extra confounding.”

Too Much, her new Netflix series, is loosely inspired by her own London chapter and follows a workaholic New Yorker in her 30s who is sent across the Atlantic to work on a new project.

The 10-episode show is produced by Working Title – the company behind Bridget Jones, Notting Hill, About A Boy and Love Actually – and stars Hacks breakout actress Megan Stalter and The White Lotus actor Will Sharpe.

Dunham says she always wanted to write about her time in the UK, but it was a conversation with Irish actor Andrew Scott that got the ball rolling.

“Actually, he’s the reason that I came to know Meg as an actor because he loved her on Hacks and he loved her videos, and he said: ‘Have you watched this woman’s work? I feel like there’s a real connection between you two’, and I started watching because of him and built a show around her.”

In a full circle moment, Scott appears in the series briefly as an arrogantly odd man who crosses paths with Megan Stalter’s character Jessica.

The Ridley actor isn’t the only famous face joining the cast in a cameo role. Dunham put a call out to most of Hollywood, and luckily lots were on board.

To name just a few, guest stars include Jessica Alba, Stephen Fry, Adwoa Aboah, Kit Harington, Rita Wilson, Rita Ora, Richard E Grant, Emily Ratajkowski, Andrew Scott, Prasanna Puwanarajah and Jennifer Saunders.

“It was one of those situations where you just reach for the stars, literally, and then you can’t believe when they appear,” says Dunham.

“It was just a non-stop parade of people that I was fascinated by, wanted to be around, completely enamoured of.”

She adds: “I remember asking Naomi Watson, thinking, there’s absolutely no way that you’re going to want to come play this slightly demented woman. And she’s so playful and she’s so joyful and she just wanted to come and engage.

“Also, Jennifer Saunders has meant so much to me for so long, I had the AbFab box set as a kid, and I just think Patsy and Edina are the ultimate kind of messy women.

“She really showed me what comedy could be and… the space that women could occupy in comedy, and so having her come and join the show was really incredible.

“That was an episode that someone else was directing, Alicia McDonald, an amazing director, so I just got to sit and watch at the monitor like I was watching a movie, and it was very surreal for me.”

Too Much is out on Netflix now.

Entertainment

‘I will not go quietly,’ Gregg Wallace says amid reports he’s been sacked by the BBC

Published

1 day ago

July 8, 2025

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'I will not go quietly,' Gregg Wallace says amid reports he's been sacked by the BBC

Former MasterChef host Gregg Wallace has vowed he will “not go quietly”, amid reports that he has been sacked by the BBC.

It comes after the TV host faced an investigation, commissioned by MasterChef’s production company Banijay UK, into alleged inappropriate behaviour while working for the BBC.

In November, the 60-year-old stepped back from presenting the cooking show after accusations that he made sexual comments towards staff and celebrity guests on a range of programmes over 17 years.

Broadcaster Kirsty Wark, author and actor Emma Kennedy, and presenter Kirstie Allsopp, were among the high-profile figures who made claims of inappropriate behaviour against Wallace.

In a statement, released ahead of the publication of the summary of a report into the claims, the 60-year-old said he had been “cleared of the most serious and sensational accusations” made against him.

However, he said the report, carried out by independent law firm Lewis Silkin, had found him “primarily guilty of inappropriate language between 2005 and 2018”.

Wallace’s statement, published on Instagram, came hours before the BBC News reported that 50 more people had made claims to the corporation against the presenter, including allegations he groped one MasterChef worker and pulled his trousers down in front of another.

In his statement, Wallace labelled BBC News’s claims as “uncorroborated tittle-tattle”.

Wallace wrote: “I have taken the decision to speak out ahead of the publication of the Silkin’s report – a decision I do not take lightly.

“But after 21 years of loyal service to the BBC, I cannot sit in silence while my reputation is further damaged to protect others.

“I have now been cleared by the Silkin’s report of the most serious and sensational accusations made against me.

“The most damaging claims (including from public figures which have not been upheld) were found to be baseless after a full and forensic six-month investigation.

“To be clear, the Silkin’s report exonerates me of all the serious allegations which made headlines last year and finds me primarily guilty of inappropriate language between 2005 and 2018.”

‘I was hired as the cheeky greengrocer – now that’s a problem’

Wallace said he recognised that “some of my humour and language” was at times “inappropriate” and, for that, he apologised “without reservation”.

“But I was never the caricature now being sold for clicks,” Wallace, who also referred to his recent diagnosis of autism, added.

“I was hired by the BBC and MasterChef as the cheeky greengrocer. A real person with warmth, character, rough edges, and all.

“For over two decades, that authenticity was part of the brand. Now, in a sanitised world, that same personality is seen as a problem.”

Wallace: Complaints from ‘middle-class women of a certain age’

Shortly after the allegations first emerged, Wallace recorded a video where he dismissed his accusers as “middle-class women of a certain age”.

His remarks were met with huge criticism – including from Downing Street, where a spokesperson for the prime minister described them as “completely inappropriate and misogynistic”.

Wallace responded by posting a follow-up clip where he apologised and said he “wasn’t in a good space” when he posted the comments.

Wallace was replaced in the 20th season of MasterChef, which aired this spring, by restaurant critic and former I‘m A Celebrity contestant Grace Dent. Several Christmas episodes of the show were also pulled from the BBC’s 2024 festive schedule.

In April, Wallace spoke to the Daily Mail, denying all accusations against him and saying he had contemplated suicide following the allegations.

Wallace’s lawyers have previously called allegations that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature “entirely false”.

A spokesperson for the BBC said: “Banijay UK instructed the law firm Lewis Silkin to run an investigation into allegations against Gregg Wallace. We are not going to comment until the investigation is complete and the findings are published.”

A Banijay spokesperson told Sky News: “We won’t be commenting until our report is published.” They have signalled the report will be published later this week or next.

Banijay previously said Wallace is “committed to fully co-operating” with the external review.

Alongside MasterChef, Wallace presented Inside The Factory for BBC Two from 2015 to 2023.

He also featured on various BBC shows over the years, including Saturday Kitchen, Eat Well For Less, Supermarket Secrets, Celebrity MasterChef and MasterChef: The Professionals, as well as being a Strictly Come Dancing contestant in 2014.

More recently, Wallace has been promoting his health and lifestyle website, offering one-to-one coaching from both himself and a team of experts, which includes nutritionists and doctors, and his wife Anna in the role of recipe curator.

Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.