Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel's Celia Imrie on Hollywood beauties 'who ruin themselves'

Actress says it would have been impossible to film the sequel to Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in LA

Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel star Celia Imrie (Getty)

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel actress Celia Imrie has joked that film could not have been made in Hollywood as "nobody has wrinkles".

The English actress, 62, who stars in the sequel about a hotel for retirees in India alongside Dame Judi Dench and Dame Maggie Smith, said it is a "great time for women my age" in film.

“I'm hoping that the buzz surrounding Marigold can create the possibility of a late entry into Hollywood, although the movie could never have been made there as nobody has wrinkles,” she told the Mail On Sunday's You magazine.

"It's always the beauties who really ruin themselves; if you've always been cast as the love interest it must be terribly hard to face up to the passage of the years.

"I've never been the ingenue, but when Maggie, Judi and I all sat down to watch the first film, the director John Madden was roaring with laughter because we were wailing about how old we all looked.

"But what the heck; it's what the film's about and I do consider myself lucky to have been just the right age when Calendar Girls was cast and just the right age for Marigold. This is a great time for women my age."

Imrie said her biggest regret is having "wasted" years of her life "being obsessed with food".

She said: "It makes me very angry when I see girls who are anorexic. I just wish I could shake them and get them to listen, but then I never listened to anyone.

"It's the sort of thing you have to decide yourself - that you want to get better."

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel also stars Richard Gere, Bill Nighy and Dev Patel.

Additional reporting from PA

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