I still miss Men in Trees but I am glad that Anne Heche is back on TV. This past Sunday the NY Times Magazine did a profile of Anne Heche who is appearing in the show Hung and the upcoming movie Spread. I thought Heche came off great in the piece. Way more normal and thoughtful that I expected.
It was interesting to note that she lost out on her potential to become a “leading lady” after she fell in love with Ellen DeGeneres. I love how Hollywood is so progressive but would quickly throw anyone under the bus who doesn’t conform to the “norm.” I bet it was even a bunch of gay guys who wouldn’t hire her.
The romance actually destroyed her prospects as a leading lady; the deal for “Six Days, Seven Nights” was the last one made as the affair became public, and no more were offered.
But the quote that has everyone freaking out is from the executive producer and co-creator of Hung Colette Burson where she stated:
“We auditioned a lot of people,” says Colette Burson, the co-creator of “Hung.” “It is incredibly difficult to find beautiful, talented, funny women over 35.”
Burson seems to have pissed a lot of people off with the remark. Having had recently interviewed her I couldn’t believe she said that and sure enough last night I I got an email from her looking to set the record straight.
Here’s what Burson had to say about the situation (by phone):
I do think it’s always hard to find pretty and funny. It’s a difficult combo and it’s something that’s talked about in Hollywood. Blonde and funny. And that is definitely true with Anne. She’s very funny and real and she’s blonde and she’s pretty. And this role happens to be for a beauty queen who needed to have serious emotional acting chops and at the same time was funny.
In terms of the quote: it is such a shame that I was either too tired to express myself correctly on the issue or part of my quote was left out because it is something that I think about a lot and I actually consider myself a warrior on front lines of this issue. It’s something I am actively involved in on a daily basis in a way that most people are not. Nevertheless I do think that the part that I would have added or the part I hope I did add was that it is difficult to find an actress over 35 or over 40 who is funny and talented and is still working and has not quit the business (emphasis mine).
And by difficult I mean harder than you think. There are not hundreds of people who show up for the auditions because you need someone who has been working, and you need someone whose agent sends them. In my personal experience I know five actresses off the top of my head if not 10 who are around the age of 40 who no longer go on auditions anymore because they are too fucking bummed out by how few roles there are.
Just to illustrate: Dmitry (Lipkin her husband and co-creator of Hung) and I went into CAA and we were talking about all the different roles and I said what we are really going to be looking for is an actress around age 40 who is talented and funny and yet can really act. They seemed to not want to address my question so I brought it up again and they said what about x? (a well known 45 year old film actress) I said no, we don’t want to cast celebrities. We want to cast real women and this is a rare opportunity. We don’t want you to send us your beautiful starlets. Send us real women with real bodies who can act and who can be comedic. And he looked sort of sheepish and said I’m really ashamed to tell you we don’t have anyone like that on our list.
I said you mean to tell me that you this huge agency can’t send us a woman who is 40 and they said no. And he said I know it’s horrible but it’s the state of the business that they really aren’t a lot of roles for them.
It’s such a bummer. When you cast a role, casting agents will send you who has been working. My friends who haven’t had a job in five years who quit because it was such a fucking bummer they are not sent out because they don’t have managers anymore. They are not in the game anymore and it’s not because they aren’t talented. Of course they’re talented.
So what I am saying is that it’s hard and the situation is more complex than you would think. Because we are one of the few shows that frequently has these types of roles open…like the role of Tanya. How often does that type of role occur? Jane Adams is this gem and people say why don’t we see her working more? And the answer is because there haven’t been that many roles for her. We actually wrote a role for a failed poet who is over 40 and she is not ms fabulous. She doesn’t wear clothes from Neiman Marcus or Fred Segal.
So I hope the message will get out there. Maybe I was tired, maybe I was a dumb ass but I feel so passionately about the issue. But that aside our actions on a daily basis is that we fight this issue. We conceive of characters that are women over 35 of all body types. We debate them and we fill them out in the writers room. So please forgive me for the asinine quote but look at what we are actually doing because we passionately care about this issue.
Do you think that clarifies the issue?
Here’s another interesting tidbit. The first couple of episodes were written before Heche was hired. So as of this week they started writing for Anne. Burson was effusive in her compliments about Heche.
As it (the season) continues we begin to write to her more frequently because she hits it out of the park with whatever she gets.
Anne Heche is Playing it Normal Now (NY Times)
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Melissa,
Thank you for posting this clarification from Colette Burson. I think the addendum makes her remark makes sense. The whole thing about ‘older’ actors (older than 35, fer chrissakes) and roles is like the chicken-or-egg conundrum, isn’t it? We need more roles to be written, yet we need the actors to be available to play them. To me it’s similar to the issue of having more women’s sports broadcast on national TV; an audience is needed to sustain it, yet an audience can’t be built without the broadcast. Sigh.
On another issue, I find the different trajectories of Anne Heche and Ellen DeGeneres careers very interesting. They both suffered when they came out (separately), then Ellen revived hers through her performance as an animated character (Dorie) and further parlayed it into a very successful talk show gig. And while Anne Heche lost her leading lady status, she was able to bounce back in TV. So–maybe the moral of the story is that there are second chances for ‘older’ actors who have fallen out of the mainstream graces?
I think we bend over backwards to be sure to say that no one could be sexist except for older bearded white dudes. Well, except for that dude that directed Funny People, who women seem to bend over backwards with a “yes..but” whenever he is accused of sexism. He’s just a poor misunderstood puppy.
Yes. It is possible for a woman to be sexist, even those women who you wish to be poster women for women in hollywood. In fact, women try to get that coltish patter of being one of the guys in order to get funding. I don’t think it is a mistake that this woman is sexist. The character drawn for Anne Heche is uptight, bitchy and cold – kinda cardboard, and not bitchy in that good way that is empowering like, say the Pam the vampire way on True Blood or even the ladys on Ab Fab. This woman does not think much of women over 35 (which is not old, by the way), and it shows.
And by the way…Anne Hache is a “woman with a real body?” It seems to me that she is the same very thin, willowy blonde just in a model over forty. So…this is her definition of being off the beaten trail?
“I bet it was even a bunch of gay guys who wouldn’t hire her.”
…Right, because we know gay men wield so much power in the mainstream film industry.
What Sally said. She’s just backtracking now that everyone’s called her out for being an idiot. Her excuse still doesn’t make sense. She didn’t want a celebrity so they went to CAA. Huh? That’s the last place I’d look for a non-celebrity, real woman with a real body.
What a bunch of crap. No 35 year old funny female actors, huh? They just aren’t out there? Here’s an idea. Try calling agencies besides CAA and IMT. There are *hundreds* of journeyman agencies out there with exceedingly talented rosters of talented, funny and gorgeous women 30+ that your stuck-up attitude will never allow you to see because you’re too lazy to go beyond the 2 agencies you have on speed dial.
word up to Magi.
Ok peeps-
Let’s cut her a little slack. She walked herself back into a shitstorm and she picked a feminist blog to do it on. Do you watch the show? What do you think of it?
That comment so rankled me when I read it in the Times and I’m glad you allowed her a place to clarify her response.
However, the commenters above have a point. Everyone in Hollywood has drank some amount of Kool-Aid in order to be there. So even people who sincerely claim to be doing something different for the women of the world are still stuck within a distorted paradigm.
I used to work for a female producer and the world in which they operate bears no resemblance to those of mere mortals. Anne Heche is a semi-unconventional choice only within the totally predictable profile for women on screen. They do get a lot more cred for Jane Adams, however.
anybody who has ever been interviewed for publication knows how easy it is for one’s remarks to be misinterpreted. and anyone who knows colette burson knows that she is sincere in her desire to create a different and progressive perception of women in the in the industry. watch HUNG, people, and then give Colette a break. she and her husband are writing wonderful parts for women and she should be applauded for that. she should not be punished for a sound bite that was taken out of a much larger context when she’s one of the few writers who is actually writing for the group who are attacking her.
It would be great if more women like Colette would post to this site. We need to know what’s going really on behind the scenes before anything can change.
Thanks once again Melissa for all the reporting on the age/talent issues of Hollywood. I love Anne Heche and it will be fun to see her in action again. I also wanted to mention how depressing it is for someone in my demographic to go to the Santa Monica Promenade and not be able to find a decent film to watch. (I had a couple of hours to kill before a class). So what is up with this place? Well, I know I’m doing my bit. I’ve written a screenplay, “How I Survived the Sixties”, I will have a table read on Aug. 16th and have some help from a gal named Jasmine Ladjevardi, who once wrote on your blog and prompted me to get in touch with her. So someday you will see my film in the theaters and you can say it was birthed with the help of your blog!! Yes!
As much as I want to ignore the fact women my age are so underepresented, I have to acknowlege that there has to be a huge shift, very soon, so that all ages of men and women can go and enjoy the same film. I’m really trying to make that happen. My protaganist is only 17 in the beginning but ages 40 years in the story and so I will get to use some 50+ year old actresses. I’m praying for a miracle and getting myself out there as an actress all at the same time. I’m also in school studying to be a director so when everything converges to get this film made, I hope to alter some stinkin thinkin of ageist attitudes. We, meaning the baby boomers, are such a huge demographic. I will not let this rest until I can make a dent in our film industry. Tenacity reigns!! Thanks for being there, Pilar.
You had some nice points here. I done a research on the topic and got most peoples will agree with you
This article makes no sense. Anne Heche was not “over 40″ when this article was published. she had JUST TURNED 40. She’s 42 now (April 2012). Her age has nothing to do with it. She was a nobody, a bit player until she switched teams and got famous for being with Ellen. She was 27 then and had JUST (literally the same week) got her first leading role in a film (Six Days Seven Nights). Had she not decided to be a lesbian for a while, she would be a movie star now. But to say age was the reason is stupid. She was in her 20s! Actresses like Jennifer Aniston are slightly older than Anne and getting lead roles in major films NOW. Anne never had a full-fledged, above-the-title starring role in a major film. Six Days Seven Nights was the only major lead role she had (besides Return to Paradise, which was a few months after 6 Days 7 Nights but was only a smaller film) since then she’s had small parts in direct-to-videos, TV guest spots, failed TV pilots and 2 short lived shows, and occasional lead role in a TV movie-of-the-week.
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