The Matrix’s Carrie-Anne Moss says she got an offer to play a grandmother at 40: ‘I went from being a girl to the mother to beyond the mother’

Carrie-Anne Moss sat down with her friend Justine Bateman earlier this month to moderate a discussion about aging and the actress and filmmaker’s newest book Face: One Square Foot Of Skin.

During their discussing at New York City’s 92nd Street Y, Moss admitted that she started being offered roles that were much too old for her practically as soon as she hit 40, according to The Hollywood Reporter. 

Moss, 53, knew reaching her 40s might change what roles were available to her, but she didn’t realize it could happen overnight.

Aged out: Carrie-Anne Moss, 53, admitted she started getting elderly roles practically as soon as she hit 40 in a conversation in NYC this month with Justine Bateman, 55, to promote her new book Face

‘I had heard that at 40 everything changed,’ she said. ‘I didn’t believe in that because I don’t believe in just jumping on a thought system that I don’t really align with.

‘But literally the day after my 40th birthday, I was reading a script that had come to me and I was talking to my manager about it,’ she continued. ‘She was like, “Oh, no, no, no, it’s not that role [you’re reading for], it’s the grandmother.” I may be exaggerating a bit, but it happened overnight. I went from being a girl to the mother to beyond the mother.’

Particularly frustrating about the premature turn toward elderly roles was how it didn’t seem to affect male actors, such as her Memento costar Guy Pearce or The Matrix lead Keanu Reeves.

Like Bateman, Moss wasn’t interested in altering herself just to continue competing with younger stars.

Swift: The day after my 40th birthday, I was reading a script that had come to me and I was talking to my manager about it. She was like, “Oh, no, no, no, it’s not that role [you’re reading for], it’s the grandmother”‘; still from Memento (2000)

Unfair: Particularly frustrating about the premature turn toward elderly roles was how it didn’t seem to affect male actors, such as her Memento costar Guy Pearce or The Matrix lead Keanu Reeves; still from The Matrix (1999)

‘You don’t feel like you’ve aged much and suddenly you’re seeing yourself onscreen,’ she said, calling it ‘kind of brutal’ to see the transition to playing older characters on screen. 

‘I would look at these French and European actresses and they just had something about them that felt so confident in their own skin. I couldn’t wait to be that. I strive for that. It’s not easy being in this business. There’s a lot of external pressure.’

Bateman, 55, said she had been inspired to write Face after observing how women in the public eye were treated differently from men as they aged.

‘I find it psychotic that we have leapfrogged any conversations that we should be cutting up our faces,’ she said.

‘It’s become normalized. Time out, time out! This is not a fact. This is an idea that we can either pull in and make a belief or not. I’m like, f*** that.’

‘Brutal’: ‘You don’t feel like you’ve aged much and suddenly you’re seeing yourself onscreen,’ she said, calling it ‘kind of brutal’ to see the transition to playing older characters on screen; seen in 2019 in NYC

Going her own way: Bateman has publicly spoken out against cosmetic procedures to make herself look younger which has led to plenty of online abuse on social media; seen in 2011

Bateman has publicly spoken out against cosmetic procedures to make herself look younger, particularly for her face, which has led to plenty of online abuse on social media, though it hasn’t made her question her principles at all.

‘I had to get rid of this idea that my face was something that was horrible and should be fixed,’ she said.

Part of her journey to accepting herself and her body as she get older was finding was to combat the insecurities she had about her appearance.

‘It does nothing to make me happier or free. It does everything to tamp all that down. It does everything to mute my life,’ she said of those insecurities. ‘I’m going to do the opposite, then I’ll have the opposite result.’

Bateman’s new book is a follow-up to her 2018 non-fiction work Fame: The Hijacking of Reality, which focused on the role Hollywood has in shaping popular culture.

Although Moss has had to contend with being offered less appealing roles in recent years, she set for her most high-profile performance in years when she reunites with Keanu Reeves in The Matrix 4, which is currently slated for a December 2021 release.

Coming soon: Moss will reunite with Keanu Reeves in The Matrix 4, which is currently slated for a December 2021 release

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