“Women Don't Just Curl Up And Die After 40”

Elizabeth McGovern is in her prime. She’s Downton’s lady of the manor, an accidental rock singer, mother of two and now the star of a movie she made happen. But it hasn’t all been plain sailing, she tells Juliet Rieden.

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It’s Elizabeth McGovern’s first time in Australia. The American-born London-based actress is fighting jetlag, but itching to explore, while also frantic to do everything she can to alert the world to her latest movie, The Chaperone. At 57, Elizabeth is the star of the show, which shouldn’t be a thing, but in an industry that extols fresh young faces and regularly shelves women over 40 to character roles, she’s right to feel empowered.

“I do feel there is a dearth of women my age represented in any field, in TV, movies and music,” Elizabeth says as she settles down to have her hair and make-up done in preparation for The Weekly’s exclusive photo shoot. “People my age are out in the world and like to see themselves reflected in the stories they see, because we don’t just curl up and die after the age of 30 or 40.

“I yearn for it as an audience member. I don’t want to see every woman my age just as the supportive wife or the embittered singleton. I don’t want these clichés over and over again. I want to see people making discoveries, growing, learning and I feel, if I have an appetite for it, why wouldn’t other women? We deserve to be represented.”

Elizabeth is right, of course, and the tide is slowly turning, with beauty companies, advertising agencies and television networks all finally catching on and embracing women of substance, women aged between 40 and 100, who are frankly tired of being ignored.

In the case of The Chaperone, Elizabeth’s argument is also very much part of the film’s narrative. On the face of it, her character Norma should be a cipher, a dowdy lady in the background of the soon-to-be-famous and precociously vivacious Louise Brooks.