Nicole Kidman Calls Out Ageism in Hollywood: After 40, 'You're Done'

Hollywood star Nicole Kidman has called out ageism against women in the entertainment industry, saying actresses are often pushed aside once they reach their 40s.

In a series of interviews to promote her new Amazon Studios movie Being the Ricardos, in which she plays Lucille Ball, Kidman took Hollywood to task for  the way it often brutally rejects middle-aged actresses.

‘There’s a consensus in the industry that as a female actor, at about 40, you’re done,” she told Dujour magazine. “I never sat in a chair and heard someone say, ‘You’re past your due date’. But I’ve had times where you’re turned down and the door is shut on you.”

She added: “It’s definitely changing and moving, but that’s what Being the Ricardos is about.”

Kidman, 54, told The Daily Mail that she could identify with the way Lucille Ball was treated in the industry.”She’d been slapped down, told she wasn’t good enough — and that she was too old,” Kidman said.

“I can relate to Lucille Ball, where you’re told: You’re past it now. You’re over. I’ve been in this industry for decades now; and I’ve been ‘finished” more than once.”

Watch below:

Kidman reportedly continued her criticism of Hollywood in an interview with Britain’s The Mail on Sunday‘s You magazine

‘I was frustrated — as so many women are in different careers — at the idea of being told, “Well, that’s it. You’ve passed through that period where it’s all going to be fine and now you’re in your 40s we’re not interested as much in your storytelling or your ideas or in who you are as a woman or a person’.”

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