Oscar-winning actress Ellen Burstyn addressed shifting attitudes to older woman in Hollywood ahead of the world premiere of Kornel Mundruzcó’s Place To Be, in which she co-stars opposite Taika Waititi, at the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday.
The Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and The Last Picture Show star revealed that she had started to question how long her career would last when she was in her 30s.
“I was sure I’d be finished by 40. I didn’t think it would go on much longer than that. The fact that I’m 93 and still working is a miracle of some kind that I’ve attracted into my life somehow, and I’m totally amazed,” she said.
“At the same time, I’m deeply grateful… to all the women who worked on changing the consciousness for the world in regard to women and all of the work that they did that made that possible for us to continue to have longer life lives as artists.”
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She paid tribute to American feminist icon and founder of Ms. Magazine Gloria Steinem, who died at age 92 in early September.
“Gloria Steinem is the one I’m thinking of… she started Ms. Magazine back then. What influenced me was Ms. Magazine,” she said, acting out with passion a line in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore in which her character declared, “It’s my life. It’s not some man’s life that I’m helping him out with”.
“That really was the way it was before the change, and thank God, thank God, the world changed and allowed women to be full human beings,” she continued with a mischievous smile to applause and laughter: “Was that a comment?”
Burstyn stars in light-hearted road movie Place to Be opposite Waititi as an elderly widow who forges an unexpected deep connection with a middle-aged man she meets while travelling from Chicago to New York to return a lost racing pigeon to its owner.
The chance meeting and connection helps them confront personal disappointments, to rediscover a sense of purpose and wonder at a time when both thought it was no longer possible in the stages of their respective lives.
Burstyn and Waititi are joined in the cast by Murray Bartlett and Pamela Anderson who did not participate in the press conference.
Mundruzcó told the press conference that he had first hit on the idea of developing a film for Burstyn after working with her briefly on his 2020 Oscar-nominated drama Pieces of a Woman.
“I was totally fascinated by her, and I find I definitely wanted to make a movie for her, specifically for her. So, we started to develop it, and we watched all of her movies, although obviously we knew many of them,” said Mundruzcó, who directed the film from a screenplay by longtime collaborator Kata Weber.
He said he quickly came to the conclusion that he wanted to create a love story for Burstyn.
“That idea stayed all the way. How can I create a love story for her and other women at that age, in which the tone is kind of light and tender and kind of easy, but at the same time telling a very deep story.”
Alongside accompanying Place to Be, Burstyn is also an honorary guest of the Venice Film Festival this year as a recipient of its Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement earlier this week.
