Jude Law Happy to Loose His Middle Age Virginity
It’s been my experience that as much as I hate it, the older I got the easier it was to score while I was single. Meaning I understand what Jude is trying to say about his getting older. On the other hand one knows that when we hit middle age no matter how successful we are or not in meeting guys, the clock is running and 40-80 is only a few numbers away. At the same time that we might attract people, hopefully we have become more discerning and cautious, which will for against us been paired after certain age.
If you have a different point of view, you have plenty of space down below to have your feelings known. adamfoxie*
Jude Law is happy that he was cast as Keira Knightley‘s unattractive husband in Anna Karenina, at least according to a New York Timesprofile that’s making the rounds today for his quote about no longer being a “pretty young thing.” In some ways, his reflections on aging in Hollywood sound like things we’ve heard from actresses like Jennifer Aniston and Julianne Moore–for whom aging has brought confidence and new perspective–except for the parts about all of his opportunities.
Law discussed his age in relation to his role in Anna Karenina–for which the Times thinks he would have been cast as the lover, not the pious husband, just a few years ago:
“In a weird way, it’s kind of a relief to think, ‘Oh, I know I’m not that young sort of pretty thing anymore,’ ” he said. “It’s quite nice talking about what it was like to be the young pretty thing, rather than being it.”“I feel kind of more confident, more settled as a human being, more settled in my own skin.” When he was younger, he said, he longed to be taken seriously but found that some of his roles did not allow him to do that. Being older, “you are allowed to be an actor, and the parts you get are more interesting.”
The profile also paints a nasty picture of Law’s tabloid-ridden past, something that no doubt reinforces his happiness with this “new phase in his life,” as T Magazine calls it:
“They had kind of stripped me and my relationships bare — there was nothing left to write,” Law said. “And there is only so much laundry one has, in the end, to be washed in public.”How liberating, too, he said, to be that much older and not have to maintain an impossible image of perfection. Confronted with a rack of clothes at the photo shoot for this article, he told me his reaction had been, “Look, tell me what I’m wearing — I really don’t care.”He added: “I don’t have a lot of time anymore for standing around choosing outfits. I’m too long in the tooth for that now.”
It’s hard to buy that Law has lost his cache as an attractive actor, and while he’s far from “long in the tooth” by most peoples’ standards–he turns 40 next month–in Hollywood, it’s true that he’s getting up in his years.
And while it’s nice to see graceful, happy examples of aging–especially in Hollywood, where it’s rarely the case–it’s hard not to notice the contract between his situation and many actresses’.
Take Ashley Judd: For her, the “new phase of life” that was her forties involved speculation about her “puffy face,” cosmetic surgery, and weight.
“When my 2012 face looks different than it did when I filmed Double Jeopardy in 1998,” shewrote in the Daily Beast, “I am accused of having ‘messed up’ my face (polite language here, the F word is being used more often), with a passionate lament that ‘Ashley has lost her familiar beauty audiences loved her for.’” And that’s one of the kinder examples of tabloid coverage she’s gotten since losing her status as “pretty young thing.”
For Jude Law, aging has also come with professional opportunities and a softer light in the media. For women, the trade-off of gaining all that wisdom tends to be losing out on their careers, and often getting mauled by the media–regardless of how they look. We’re happy for him; we just wish that women got a fair shot at having the same.
[Photo: ZTimages.com, PacificCoastNews.com]
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