Ugly Betty star’s shock at British obsession with plastic surgery
‘Women are not allowed to grow old’
SHE got her big break on British TV starring alongside Ricky Gervais before finding fame in Hollywood.
But Scots actress Ashley Jensen 48, feels says the pressure to look good and go under the knife is worse in the UK than in Hollywood.
She compared the faces of women who have undergone plastic surgery to a ‘cross between a hard-boiled egg and a cat’.
Best-known for her roles in British sitcom Extras and US hit Ugly Betty, she said despite being surrounded by the beauty standards of Hollywood, she has never been compelled to change her appearance.
‘I was too old to bow to any pressure – and I refused to,’ Miss Jensen told the latest issue of the Radio Times. ‘I went there the same way as I came back. I think there’s more pressure over here now than I ever felt over there.
‘It’s one of these twisted things that’s become the norm… that women are not allowed to grow old. It’s becoming more normal to see a face that looks like a cross between a hard-boiled egg and a cat.’
She now lives near Bath, Somerset, after six years in Los Angeles with husband Terence Beresley and their eight-year-old-son, Frankie.
Asked if her life changed when she moved to the US in 2006 for Ugly Betty, she said: ‘I went there slightly older than most people do and it was almost like getting pregnant by accident, like, “Oh God, my head’s not quite ready for this.”’
She added: ‘Everything escalated quickly after doing Extras with Ricky Gervais. It was never part of my game plan to go to America.’
On her background, Miss Jensen – seen on TV more recently playing amateur sleuth Agatha Raisin – described her home town of Annan, Dumfriesshire, as a ‘cultural void’. She said she did not get to the theatre and rarely to the cinema.
Her mother, Margaret, saved enough for her to attend the National Youth Theatre, London, and when she returned home, aged 16, she became determined to pursue an acting career.
Miss Jensen has said previously: ‘I look back and think what a brave thing for a parent to do – let me at that age, from a wee Scottish town, go to London on my own and be part of this mad world of acting.’