The wisdom power of wisdom
Two months ago, a group of young actors talked to Canvas about the big issues in their lives. Now Dionne Christian asks female veterans of the stage and screen for their thoughts on working in a youth-obsessed business
ON ROLES FOR WOMEN:
LISA CHAPPELL: When I turned 40, the television work dried up; the film work dried up and I have been primarily making a living in theatre for a decade; it’s hard to make a living out of theatre. I’m not sure the “more opportunities for women” has transferred to New Zealand yet; I was short-listed for a television role where I was the right age but it ended up going to someone 15 years younger than the character was written to be. When that happened, I felt a door closing and I thought, “Right, I need to start diversifying even more because we have not caught up with the rest of the world yet.” I teach; I am trying to get into more voiceover Mc/narration work, I want to do more directing, I need to do musicals as well — I need to use my singing — which is why I did Shortland Street — the Musical and That Bloody Woman last year. It basically kicked me up the arse. And I thought, yup, that’s where we’re at in this country at the moment.
JENNIFER WARD-LEALAND: The theatre is the last refuge of the complex female. Having said that, there’s been an explosion of extraordinary female screen writing teams — look at the Fleabags and the Killing Eves.
I feel very lucky to have played one of the best roles of my career at 55 in Vermillion and all of the cast — it was a female lead film — were aged over 40. That was a total gift because it was a chance to use all my life experience. Are these roles expanding? I think definitely things are changing in the screen industry … To keep it changing, we need more female writers and to keep on developing those writers because it’s always about the writers. I also think taxpayer funding for the arts should be for everybody. We should be able to see ourselves on screens and I think in the past, and generally, you don’t see many women over 50 regularly on our screens. It’s still extraordinarily youth-focused.
One young blond female talked about how for every role she was sent for, it required nudity or scenes of a sexual nature. Then there’s aspirational casting where a 33-year-old woman will be cast to play a character who’s meant to be 45. A 20-yearold sees that and thinks, “I hope I look that good when I am 45!” while the 45-year-old thinks, “Why don’t I look as good as she does?”
In reality, 45-year-olds seldom look like 33-year-olds. RIMA TE WIATA: I remember at [Toi Whaakari] drama school in the early 1980s, Grant Tilly, who was one of the drama tutors, asked us, “Who believes they’ll be doing this in 40 years time?” And I put my hand up immediately and he said, “and why do you think that?” I said, “Well, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think that; I wouldn’t have come to this school if I didn’t want this.” So I was prepared to do anything to stay in it. I never saw — and I know it sounds ridiculous — age as a problem right from when I was 17 or 18. Why? Because I am not beautiful, so it wasn’t going to be taken into account. The decline isn’t going to be as noticeable; I’ll be more ordinary and I’ll be more likely to be accepted as, you know, the average woman rather than someone like, say, Catherine Deneuve or anyone else considered extraordinarily beautiful. The difference is enormous in how they were valued. Some of them, it really was just because they looked great but for others it wasn’t. It was because they had both but they were still valued just for their looks.
HERA DUNLEAVY: Things I’d still battle for? Definitely more roles for women and recognition but I think that’s a female thing across the board with employment. We have so many amazing female role-models in this country now — so that’s awesome but, especially in film and television and in theatre as well, it feels to me that there are always more solid male characters. Women are changing things but I think it will take a long time for writers to come up with roles to even that out. I am always optimistic. Ageing, for me, fills me with hope because there are so many fabulous roles to play for older women — it’s just that they’re not done.
ALISON QUIGAN: You don’t see middle-aged women in lead roles unless they look 10 or 20 years younger. If you look at, for instance, The Brokenwood Mysteries; Neill Rea is wonderful for many reasons — he looks like someone we know but there has not been an occasion in this country where any woman has ever played a role like that, leading a company and she doesn’t happen to be size 8. Therefore, all the strength we have had in older women has not been realised, yet they’re the audience. People who sit around and watch television are not 18-year-olds.