Of course I see both the things. For an actor you don’t have as many years to work as others do. I cannot work from 18 – 50 years of age. No doubt now there are different genres that are giving equally importance to older woman. It’s like make hay when there’s sunshine. I don’t take up a show for money, I take it up for the concept and then I see if the money is good or not.

Acting, like any other profession, can be a positive and fulfilling career for women. It’s a platform for self-expression, storytelling, and connecting with audiences. It can empower women to be strong, confident, and influential voices in society.

I think being a female actor makes it more difficult in exactly the ways that any female on the planet finds the difficulty of our gender. There’s a huge misunderstanding about who we are and how we operate, a lot because of the way women are depicted in film and television.

Actors always have to fight for the good parts. There are so few good roles written for women each year, and when one is written like this every actress in town covets the role.

There are huge differences in the way male and female actors are perceived. Women have to be a certain size, in order to get good roles. The only successful, larger-than-average female actor I can think of is Kathy Bates. And once women reach a certain age, they can only expect one or two good roles per year, whereas male actors can continue working regularly well into their forties. Then there are the types of roles available to women. We're constantly depicted as sidekicks, ingenues, and hangers-on, rarely as independent and capable individuals. And the enormous, huge discrepancies in pay....the amounts that some male actors make are astronomically obscene. Women in Hollywood are constantly shown that there's a difference between them and men, and that that's okay. But it's not okay.

Acting is a very demanding career, both physically and emotionally.

I’ve got different emotions. That is a good thing about being an actress. It is a profession that you can express the emotional changes you undergo when you get old, get married or bear a child. Acting is after all a study of humans.

Every time I do anything, I have to ask myself: Is it a good role, and is it right to do it? There may be sex or nudity or violence in the script, and then you have to say: Is it gratuitous just out to shock people? Or is it there because it has to be? If role demands it, and it isn't gratuitous, I'll do it. It's my job, after all. I'm an actress. I know what I'm capable of — it's other people who have a problem with my image, not me. I hope I can do all sorts of things, not just one type who's all sweetness and light. Unfortunately, people forget it's a role and confuse it with you.

I’m working while other actresses my age are having a rough time. Every show needs a blonde cutie pie so the jobs are there. It’s a matter of finding a means to get there. There are lots of ways to do that, but I didn’t want the hassle of sleeping with people just to get work. I didn’t want to mess with agents and their couches or casting directors and producers making passes.

As long as I was an actress, I was going to find related work in the industry. There were plenty of opportunities. And fortunately I'm just pushy enough to find and get myself in touch with those who can provide such opportunities.

Being an actress was kind of like when you’re a kid, and you want to run away and join the circus, it's something you really want to do, but then you grew up and got a proper job. It was a dream, but I didn’t think it would ever be reality, and yet here I am!

As an actor, if you’re lucky enough to get any roles then that’s a good thing. If you can choose a little bit, then even better. I try and read things that are coming up and see what looks interesting. Things morph over the years as you get more and more interested in different things.

One of the things with actors too is that sometimes you don’t want to be contracted to do a role as an actor because if you’re reading for other pilots and you have an interest in something else or a producer is talking to you about a movie or a show that’s been pitched and they’re thinking it’s gonna go, you don’t want to lock yourself into a schedule. And no one ever talks about that. In fact, usually you’re not allowed to. So you just sit there, and people have all these theories, and you can’t really say anything because of non-disclosure.

You have to do it. You can't keep thinking about it, you just sort of surrender to it, especially when you get the opportunity to work with great actors.