Well, one unnamed director apparently thought so! That’s right, someone told Julia Roberts to go somewhere and have two freckles (TWO!) removed permanently because they made her face look dirty. That’s a serious thing someone said. Now, I know some people have hangups about freckles – I personally love them and think they’re great, but whatever. If they’re not your thing, I can think of a super easy option to make them less visible: wear makeup! Actresses wear makeup in films all the time in general, so if that particular film calls for a freckle-free face (which… why does that matter?), then throw on a few extra layers of foundation and get on with it.
Tell us all about it, Julia from The Independent):
“One director wanted me to have two freckles taken off because he said it made my face look dirty,” she said.
The actress declined to mention which film she was asked to have her freckles removed for, insisting that ageing is unrelated to acting. She added she was not preoccupied with her appearance.
“I don’t spend a lot of time in the mirror,” she said. “I’m pretty efficient in terms of looking at myself and, to be honest, I don’t think what you’re talking about is a business demand – it’s a cultural obsession.”
“I definitely think some of my older female peer group are deeply beautiful women,” she continued. “They have this thing that radiates from them. It’s coming from this deep place of understanding who they are and what their purpose is. It creates a light.”
Too right in regards to the cultural obsession. A few weeks ago I was at a private conference for August: Osage County and while, yes, most of my attention was given to fawning over the absolute genius that is Meryl Streep, Julia was so charming and interesting and yes, beautiful in a way that was totally unassuming and natural. Sure, one might say it’s easy for me to say this as a 30-year-old woman who isn’t trying to make a living in Hollywood, but I don’t get the obsession with trying to look younger. If you’re 45 and you’ve got 45 years of experience in life, why would you want to make yourself look 25? Why not embrace that? The idea that old = bad is just so misguided.
Here’s a photo from that press conference, by the way:
I was a dinner with girlfriends last weekend, and one of them said something so fabulous. She said she advances her age when people ask – she said she’d rather look damn good for 40, instead of looking every bit an exhausted 29 year-old.
That’s one way to think about it! I’m not an ageist because either everyone has been or will be your age, unless they’re dead!