Isabella Rossellini on Hollywood agesim: There is no work between 45 and 60

'There is a period of 15 years where you’re in limbo and they don’t know how to hire you'

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Isabella Rossellini has highlighted how the ageism rife within the film industry is leaving actresses “stuck in limbo” between the ages of 45 and 60 and often struggling to find work.

In 1982, Rossellini's contract with Lancome made her the world’s highest-paid model. She would go on to star in David Lynch’s noir-horror Blue Velvet, one of her most defining roles.

In an interview with The Guardian, Rossellini described the moment she was dropped as the face of Lancome after 14 years and replaced by Juliette Binoche, an actress 12 years younger than her.

Rossellini, now 64, was a single mother to two children at the time and says her sacking left her concerned about how she would support her family financially. At 44, she suddenly found herself pigeon-holed by directors who considered her too old to play most female protagonists, but not old enough to be cast in roles reserved for 'older women' such as the grandmother.

“My mum told me that there is no job for women between 45 and 60, because you are in-between. You are not young enough to play the young girl, but you are also not old enough to play the matriarch, the witch or grandmother. So there is a period of 15 years where you’re in limbo and they don’t know how to hire you. Then after 60, a lot of work comes back.”

Her recent reappointment as the face of Lancome is a case in point.

Reflecting on the pressure faced by high-profile women not to betray any signs of the ageing process in their face, Rossellini compared cosmetic surgery to practices such as feet binding.

“Sometimes I wake up and think, ‘Is this the new technology? Let’s go and do the operation.’ But most of the time I wake up and think, ‘Is this the new feet binding, is this the new way of being misogynist, is this a new way to tell women they’re ugly, is this a new way of telling women they should be this and this?’ And you give standards that are impossible to be reached, because the underlying problem is misogyny.”

Her point was demonstrated in October when an interviewer presented Monica Bellucci’s casting as a Bond Girl alongside Daniel Craig as the character of Bond “succumbing to the charms of an older woman”. Bellucci was 51 at the time and Craig was 47.

“I think you mean the charms of a woman his own age,” Craig replied. “We’re talking about Monica Bellucci, for heaven’s sake. When someone like that wants to be a Bond girl, you just count yourself lucky!”