Famke Janssen has blamed her failure to be cast in the new X-Men movie on Hollywood’s sexist agenda towards older women.
The Dutch actor, who starred as psychic mutant Jean Grey in three X-Men movies, said she could not understand why Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart had been given key roles as older versions of series stalwarts Magneto and Professor X in recent instalments of the superhero saga, while she had not.
Women get less dialogue in Hollywood films the older they get, study finds.
The 2014 X-Men film, Days of Future Past, featured different versions of the warring mutants in alternate timelines, with Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy playing the younger iterations in a 1970s setting.
However, the film’s sequel, the 1980s-set X-Men: Apocalypse, features Game of Thrones actor Sophie Turner, 20, as a young Jean Grey. Janssen was not cast.
“Women, it’s interesting because they’re replaced, and the older versions are never to be seen again,” Janssen told Entertainment Weekly. “Whereas the men are allowed to be both ages. Sexism. I think that I should be back along with my younger version and the way that we’ve seen it with Magneto and Professor X.”
Janssen, 51, said she had tried to discuss a return for the older Grey with producers but had not received a response.
“I have not heard any feedback on that, other than total radio silence,” she said.
Janssen’s comments were published as ageism and sexism remain a hot-button topic in Hollywood. Earlier this month a survey of 2,000 movies by Polygraph revealed women are given less dialogue in American films the older they get, while male actors get more lines the older they become, up to the age of 65.
